Announcing MonkeyGTD task manager demo
Simon Baird
Ken Girard
I saw that you were having issues with the latest version of
remindersPlugin crashing FF. I experimented around a bit and realized
that you needed to also be running Jeremy Sheeley's tweeked out version
of the CalendarPlugin to get it to stop crashing. (Kinda confused me as
I was sure that his version of the DatePlugin would have been what was
needed.)
Ken Girard
Mike De Bruyn
--
Cheers,
Mike
bob.e...@gmail.com
Simon, you ROCK! You MUST tell us all how to put that together for our
own use, a list of instructions, a package, something...now...gimmee!
gimmee! gimmee!
Hm... sorry, got a little carried away there. Seriously, this is
amazing. Can't wait until you've got it ready for 'prime time'!
Jonathan Arnold
> http://simonbaird.com/monkeygtd/
>
> Uses tag based selection of some pretty complex ViewTemplates to do
> dashboards etc.
>
> It's a very early prototype pre-alpha but I am interested in feedback
> and suggestions. Also hoping to inspire someone who really knows what
> they're doing with GTD to make something better using similar techniques.
It is *really* cool. But I can't seem to save it locally. I right click,
select "Save Page As...", but when I open up my local copy, I get the
warning about it not having been saved correctly. I'm using Firefox 1.5.0.1
on Windows XP.
--
Jonathan Arnold (mailto:jdar...@buddydog.org)
Jiggle The Handle, a personal blog http://jiggle.anaze.us
Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.
- Don Marquis
Clint Checketts
> http://simonbaird.com/monkeygtd/
Right click on the link http://simonbaird.com/monkeygtd/ and select 'Save Link As...' to save it (this is the best way)
It is *really* cool. But I can't seem to save it locally. I right click, select "Save Page As...", but when I open up my local copy, I get the warning about it not having been saved correctly. I'm using Firefox 1.5.0.1 on Windows XP.
Using the 'Save Page As...' option is buggy in Firefox. Use the 'Save Link As...' option.
-Clint
Jonathan Arnold
> On 3/8/06, *Jonathan Arnold* <jdar...@buddydog.org
>
> > http://simonbaird.com/monkeygtd/
>
>
> Right click on the link http://simonbaird.com/monkeygtd/ and select
> 'Save Link As...' to save it (this is the best way)
Yes, that's it exactly. Works like a charm. It's unfortunate that you need
a link somewhere in order to do that, isn't it?
Mike De Bruyn
--
Cheers,
Mike
Daniel Baird
Mike, does deleting the tiddler do what you want?
I guessing it'll work.. Simon's usually very zen about the "everything is a tiddler (and just a tiddler)" philosophy.
;Daniel
Daniel Baird
http://danielbaird.com (TiddlyW;nks! :: Whiteboard Koala :: Blog :: Things That Suck)
[[My webhost uptime is ~ 92%.. if no answer pls call again later!]]
Ken Girard
* Open the tiddler you want to get rid of.
* Click on 'edit' in the toolbar (only visible when you hover over the
tiddler) and it will switch to edit mode.
* You should now see the 'delete' button.
If you would like to make the toolbar always visible:
* Open the stylesheet
* Click on edit
* Add the following:
.toolbar {visibility: visible;}
Ken Girard
Simon Baird
Mike De Bruyn
Mike,
* Open the tiddler you want to get rid of.
* Click on 'edit' in the toolbar (only visible when you hover over the
tiddler) and it will switch to edit mode.
* You should now see the 'delete' button.
If you would like to make the toolbar always visible:
* Open the stylesheet
* Click on edit
* Add the following:
Cheers,
Mike
Simon Baird
Simon,WOW! Now THIS is what I was looking for. I could not make sense of the other TWs I've seen. They seem more like a collection of subroutines than a "product". Yours is very nice. I just saw it and will now try to put my life into it. Doing that will give me info I need to pass on to you.
I agree with Saq that a calendar would be nice. If possible, where ever a date is called for, a click to the calendar should autofill it.I spent just a moment fiddling with priority and I was a bit confused about how one sets priority. I'll play with it more and perhaps the solution will present itself.As a general rule: If you could manage it so that ANY field could be AUTOFILLED by clicking on something, that would make it a super product. IOW, if I want a date, I should be able to click the day on a calendar. If I want a priority, I should just be able to click it, etc.
--
Simon Baird <simon...@gmail.com >
Simon Baird
amazing. Can't wait until you've got it ready for 'prime time'! simon...@gmail.com>
Simon Baird
Mike De Bruyn
Cheers,
Mike
Simon Baird
Simon Baird
Ken Girard
projects, plans for tearing a deck down and replacing it with a 2 story
building, and an extensive list of what needs to be done for a RenFaire
committee I am on) I can say that the MonkeyGTD task manager rocks!
I even figured out that I could list 'Have a beer' under all 4
priorities off one tiddler. It's a very important task when one is
doing construction with friends. While it may not be what you intended,
I like the ability to show that something is urgent AND that I am going
to need to do it again later. For example: It might be urgent that I
call Mom today, but it ain't going to hurt if I always keep her in the
Soon catagory as well. And if I accidently click Done instead of just
unclicking Urgent after I call her, it is going to disapear out of Soon
as well, correct?
Like you I don't really know anything about the GTD system, but it has
been my experiance that it is better to make a system that is loose
enough that it can conform to the people, rather then making the people
conform to the system. If it is really going to be time saving &
friendly for the user it seems like it should be fast and fluid, not
something where I have to make sure I dot all my i's and cross all the
t's.
Small minor tweaks:
* Put Reminders under Done rather then Task. Seems to be more room
there once you add in a couple of different task.
* Add a bottomMenu under the displayArea. Basically a copy of the
topMenu. Saves one the effort of having to scroll to the top all the
time.
* Put a monthly calendar under the sidebar options
There's my $0.02, but I can't wait to see what comes next.
Ken Girard
Simon Baird
Ok, after spending the day playing with it (A day's worth of work
projects, plans for tearing a deck down and replacing it with a 2 story
building, and an extensive list of what needs to be done for a RenFaire
committee I am on) I can say that the MonkeyGTD task manager rocks!
I even figured out that I could list 'Have a beer' under all 4
priorities off one tiddler. It's a very important task when one is
doing construction with friends. While it may not be what you intended,
I like the ability to show that something is urgent AND that I am going
to need to do it again later. For example: It might be urgent that I
call Mom today, but it ain't going to hurt if I always keep her in the
Soon catagory as well. And if I accidently click Done instead of just
unclicking Urgent after I call her, it is going to disapear out of Soon
as well, correct?
Like you I don't really know anything about the GTD system, but it has
been my experiance that it is better to make a system that is loose
enough that it can conform to the people, rather then making the people
conform to the system. If it is really going to be time saving &
friendly for the user it seems like it should be fast and fluid, not
something where I have to make sure I dot all my i's and cross all the
t's.
Small minor tweaks:
* Put Reminders under Done rather then Task. Seems to be more room
there once you add in a couple of different task.
* Add a bottomMenu under the displayArea. Basically a copy of the
topMenu. Saves one the effort of having to scroll to the top all the
time.
* Put a monthly calendar under the sidebar options
There's my $0.02, but I can't wait to see what comes next.
--
Simon Baird <simon...@gmail.com>
Simon Baird
to need to do it again later. For example: It might be urgent that I
call Mom today, but it ain't going to hurt if I always keep her in the
Soon catagory as well. And if I accidently click Done instead of just
I thought of another possible idea for that. You could add a Priority of "3-Ongoing" and classify Call Mum as Ongoing. (Remember you can rename/add/delete your priorities and contexts to your heart's content).
--
Simon Baird <simon...@gmail.com>
Simon Baird
Larry
of a problem. My TW is based on your MPTW and the scrolling for the
done box and the nice box around the next action aren't working.
My next action section looks like this:
{div{nextAction{Next Actions
* Send invoice
}}}
and my done section looks like this:
Done {div{scrolling{
* Mail DB
* Setup network
}}}
I am assuming I did something to the style sheets. I added the
.scrolling and .nextAction from your stlye sheet to my style sheet.
I love where MonkeyGTD is heading but I really like the look of your
MPTW so I would like to keep the stylesheet I am using now. Could you
tell me what bits I am missing.
Simon Baird
.scrolling { border-bottom:solid #ddd 1px; overflow:auto; padding:0.5em; font-size:90%; height:8em; }
.nextAction {border:2px #fdd solid; background:#fff8f8; padding-left:0.5em;}
Jeremy Ruston
> http://simonbaird.com/monkeygtd/#ClustomFormatter
Simon - this is slightly different than Clint's original
ClustomFormatter that I'm adding to 2.0.7. It would be nice to unite
them by extending Clints' code to support your {div{class{blah blah}}}
variant. I'm thinking that it must be possible to do so more
elegantly...
Cheers
Jeremy
--
Jeremy Ruston
mailto:jer...@osmosoft.com
http://www.tiddlywiki.com
Simon Baird
{{class{ ... }}} is quite nice looking
I'm struggling to think of a nice variation to indicate you want a div rather than a span...
{class{{ ... }}} ??
How about this idea? If you put a newline before and after the start and end delimiters then you get a div. Otherwise you get a span.
Ie, this
{{class{
asdf
}}}
would be a div. (But eat the leading and trailing newlines from the div contents).
and this, for example
{{class{ asdf asdf
asdf asdf }}}
would be a span.
It's a "do what I mean" kind of thing.
Simon.
Simon Baird < simon...@gmail.com>
Mike De Bruyn
back. I am not a Java or HTML programmer so maybe this one is not for
me? I'm not sure. I have tried to enter a simple project with
associated tasks and I can't even get that done.
Project: Clean the yard
Tasks: Rake the leaves << Next Action
Mow the lawn
Fuel the mower
Find Gas Can << Next Action
Bag the leaves
Find Leaf Bags << Next Action
Call a lawn service to spray grass << Next Action
Contexts: @Home, @MildDay ... for all of the tasks
Now as I understand GTD, those are the essential elements. A project,
its tasks, the NEXT ACTION(s), and appropriate contexts. If I can
enter that simple project then I ought to get a dashboard which will
have one project, a list of tasks, and four Next Actions, and I ought
to be able to print it to a list of some kind (3x5 would be best). I
realize that I also need @Waiting and other contexts as well, but if I
get that much working then I should have all the skills necessary to
enter other projects where @Waiting would be needed.
I have looked at the various Wiki sites I can find and I have not yet
found anything that will help me enter that basic data. I have played
with the dashboard, putting in words here and there, mostly at random
to see if I could get it to look like a valid project. No luck yet.
Can someone point me to simple instructions to enter that data?
I took your warning that this is bleeding edge stuff and so if there
is no way to do this without the user writing Java or HTML or
whatever, I understand and will search for a solution I can use.
Please don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I love that this is
changing every day and getting better and better. I just have not
found a way to even enter a task yet!
Pointers to a description of how to use this would be very much
appreciated. I looked at the "ABOUT" section but it seems to lead me
only to code listings for more information.
OH, one suggestion … it would be good to have a way to configure this
for various things. Right now I'm noticing that the date is in a
format not used in the U.S., where I live. It seems to be in DD/MM/YY
(which one could argue is more logical ;-) but we use MM/DD/YY and it
is going to be hellish to have to do a mental translation for each
date. I'd even be willing to struggle with it if it were YY/MM/DD,
which has the virtue of sorting properly with no fuss ;-)
Anyway, thanks for reading.
--
Cheers,
Mike
Simon Baird
O.K. I still like what I see, but I think I have to take a big step
back. I am not a Java or HTML programmer so maybe this one is not for
me? I'm not sure. I have tried to enter a simple project with
associated tasks and I can't even get that done.
No you don't have to write code to do anything you want to do. Hang in there..
Project: Clean the yard
For that you need a tiddler called
"Clean the yard"
give it a tag of "Project"
Tasks: Rake the leaves << Next Action
Mow the lawn
Fuel the mower
Find Gas Can << Next Action
Bag the leaves
Find Leaf Bags << Next Action
Call a lawn service to spray grass << Next Action
You need a tiddler for each of these tasks.
The name of the task is the name of the tiddler.
They should all be tagged with "Clean the yard"
(looks like [[Clean the yard]] when you edit)
Once you have created them you should give them a priority and/or a context. You can do this with the checkboxes.
Contexts: @Home, @MildDay ... for all of the tasks
You need tiddlers called "@Home", "@MildDay" etc
They all should be tagged with "Context"
If you have all that then your dashboard should be singing along.
Now as I understand GTD, those are the essential elements. A project,
its tasks, the NEXT ACTION(s), and appropriate contexts. If I can
enter that simple project then I ought to get a dashboard which will
have one project, a list of tasks, and four Next Actions, and I ought
to be able to print it to a list of some kind (3x5 would be best). I
realize that I also need @Waiting and other contexts as well, but if I
get that much working then I should have all the skills necessary to
enter other projects where @Waiting would be needed.
Currently the contexts are the same across all projects. But simply create a tiddler called @Waiting and tag it as Context.
I have looked at the various Wiki sites I can find and I have not yet
found anything that will help me enter that basic data. I have played
with the dashboard, putting in words here and there, mostly at random
to see if I could get it to look like a valid project. No luck yet.
It is a bit of a learning curve. I have basically presumed that the users would be a). reasonably experienced with TiddlyWiki already and b). have some familiarity with TagglyTagging and use of the 'new here' button. So maybe you are getting in at the deep end a little.
Can someone point me to simple instructions to enter that data?
It's an area that TiddlyWiki is lacking at present, a users guide, or any sort of getting started information. I plan to write something like a users guide for MonkeyGTD some day but there's nothing at the moment.
So can you create and edit tiddlers in a normal TiddlyWiki?
I took your warning that this is bleeding edge stuff and so if there
is no way to do this without the user writing Java or HTML or
whatever, I understand and will search for a solution I can use.
Well like I said you don't need any coding unless you want to start customising things. Perhaps just some time getting familiar with TiddlyWiki and tagging concepts. You could try this: http://simonbaird.com/mptw/#TagglyTaggingTutorial
Please don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I love that this is
changing every day and getting better and better. I just have not
found a way to even enter a task yet!
Hmm. Okay. Perhaps some of the above is going past you. Short answer, click one of the "new" buttons. Or just create a tiddler, tag it with Task.
Pointers to a description of how to use this would be very much
appreciated. I looked at the "ABOUT" section but it seems to lead me
only to code listings for more information.
Yeah. I know. No documentation at all makes it hard for new users.
OH, one suggestion … it would be good to have a way to configure this
for various things. Right now I'm noticing that the date is in a
format not used in the U.S., where I live. It seems to be in DD/MM/YY
(which one could argue is more logical ;-) but we use MM/DD/YY and it
is going to be hellish to have to do a mental translation for each
date. I'd even be willing to struggle with it if it were YY/MM/DD,
which has the virtue of sorting properly with no fuss ;-)
That's a good suggestion to make date format configurable. Here's how to fix it now if you need to. Change the DD/MM to MM/DD in ViewTemplate, TaskViewTemplate, ProjectViewTemplate, and
TaskDashboardTemplate. It looks like this:
....<span macro='view created date [[DD/MM/YY]]'>...
...<span macro='view modified date [[DD/MM/YY]]'>...
Anyway, thanks for reading.
No problem. Thanks for the excellent feedback. My goal is to make it easy for an inexperienced user to get started and find help to do the things they need to do. It's a long way off at present but we'll get there eventually I think.
Simon.
--
Simon Baird <simon...@gmail.com>
Ken Girard
it "Project" & "@Home" and then click done.
Next click on the "New" button next to the priority you want to assign
the "Rake the leaves" task (I am guessing Now). Name the tiddler that
will open up "Rake the leaves" and then put the "Project" tag at the
front of the list of tags so that it reads "Project Task 2-Now [[Clean
the Yard]] @Home" & click done.
Now in the "Rake the leaves" project tiddler click on the "New" button
next to the priority you want to assign the "Find Leaf Bags" task (I am
making it Urgent). Name the tiddler "Find Leaf Bags", tag as follows
"Task 1-Urgent [[Rake the leaves]] Next", hit Done.
Still in the "Rake the leaves" project tiddler click on the "New"
button next to the Now priority and name the tiddler "Bag the leaves",
tag as follows "Task 2-Now [[Rake the leaves]]", hit Done.
Now you have broke "Rake the leaves" into it's basics. Same concepts
work for "Mow the Lawn".
For "Call a lawn service" give it a priority (in the "Clean the yard"
project tiddler) and add in the tag "@Calls"
Hopefully this makes sense, and really, after you do it one or twice it
starts getting so you gon't even think about it. For example it took me
far longer to type this then it did to build all of that in my TW (No
biggie as I got all the same task coming up anyway).
Ken Girard
> OH, one suggestion ... it would be good to have a way to configure this
Simon Baird
front of the list of tags so that it reads "Project Task 2-Now [[Clean
the Yard]] @Home" & click done.
You have tiddlers that are Tasks //and// Projects?? That's not something I would have thought would work too well, however it's interesting. I think they will look like Projects or Tasks depending on which tag comes first.
I was considering introducing sub-projects (which is what you're doing already by the sound of it!) but couldn't quite figure out the best way to do it.
Would you be interested in sharing your MonkeyGTD site, either post it online or email as an attachment?
Simon.
Simon Baird <simon...@gmail.com>
Jacques Turbé
> I am not a Java or HTML programmer so maybe this one is not for
> me?
Same as you, I am just an old GTDer :)
> I have tried to enter a simple project with
> associated tasks and I can't even get that done.
> Project: Clean the yard (snip)
> Now as I understand GTD, those are the essential elements. A project,
> its tasks, the NEXT ACTION(s), and appropriate contexts.
GTD comment :
Next action is not first action of each phase listed in the project,
but the action you could do now if you have ressources and a little
time.
So, usually, for a project you have a single NA.
Here Rake the leaves would be (imho) the NA as soon, as you are in the
garden context.
Maybe you could have another NA, in case you are in a phone context :
Arrange a date with M.Gordon (lawn service) to spray grass (instead of
: Call a lawn service to spray grass).
My TiddlyWiki implementation of your case :
I've just taken your basic case for the new GTD style TW I'm preparing
(still some CSS, IE and FF problems !) where you'll see my way in
action.
In my approach I do not use tiddlers for tasks, but reminders. Thus my
project tiddlers are really like "folders" holding anything related to
the project :
Desired outcome, deadline, notes specific to the project, milestones,
braindumps for tasks, history records, and NextAction input dialog (ie
Jeremy Shelley NewReminder).
So combined with nested sliders buttons from Eric Shulman, when you
click on a task (showreminder in a context list, or in Date or Calendar
popup), you have all the related project data you may need to remember
displayed under your eyes.
Once your project and its two NAs are entered, they are displayed :
- in today's date popup, in recent popup, in calendar popup, in Garden
and phone context tabs (First Actions in top menu), in tiddler tabs, in
tickler list of course.
They appear too in several dashboard components :
-Switchable main menus : pending by goals, pending by context, pending
by contact (thanks to Udo's listTiddlersByTagGrouping), for priorities
and action.
-In maintenance menus : tickler list action<->projects, unchecked and
checked by tags, for reviews, to maintain a "trustable system" as David
Allen says. Sitemap is very usefull to check completeness and
coherence. I began to add siteMaps in each of my top level tagging
tiddlers.
I started my adaptation from Eric'site with almost anything hideable,
so you can have 93% of the screen for the tiddlers you're working on,
but as it is it works well on my Flock, easily crashes on last FF (I
wait next release), and I've a nasty javascript block with IE :(
(I'll maybe ask for help in morrow thread ...)
> I have looked at the various Wiki sites I can find and I have not yet
> found anything that will help me enter that basic data.
So, even if my PimliPoche2 is not the solution you are looking for, I
hope it will bring you ideas for your choice :
http://avm.free.fr/en_PimliPoche2.html
#Clean the yard case
(for instance, enter "yard" in Udo's YourSearch)
Jacques
teachernz
thinking) and in Firefox 1.0.7 it just ends up as an empty"done" page (
rolled back from 1.5 because I was having problems with it. MonkeyGTD
seems to work perfectly with Flock 0.5 though. Anybody else getting an
empty page with Firefox?
Michael
Mike De Bruyn
helpful response.
> No you don't have to write code to do anything you want to do. Hang in
> there..
I'm hanging ;-)
> > Project: Clean the yard
> For that you need a tiddler called
> "Clean the yard"
> give it a tag of "Project"
>
>
> > Tasks: Rake the leaves << Next Action
> > Mow the lawn
> > Fuel the mower
> > Find Gas Can << Next Action
> > Bag the leaves
> > Find Leaf Bags << Next Action
> > Call a lawn service to spray grass << Next Action
>
>
>
> You need a tiddler for each of these tasks.
> The name of the task is the name of the tiddler.
> They should all be tagged with "Clean the yard"
> (looks like [[Clean the yard]] when you edit)
AH, there is where it went all pear shaped for me (as the Brit's say ;-)
See, I'm used to a "thing" having only one "function". IOW, in this
case "tag" is used to distinguish a "project" from a "task" in one
case (where I tagged "clean the yard" as "project"), but then in the
next case the "action" does not need to be tagged as an "action" but
rather it is used to REFERENCE a PARTICULAR project. I think it may
have been that one thing that was blocking my understanding.
> Once you have created them you should give them a priority and/or a context.
> You can do this with the checkboxes.
Gotcha. It is starting to make sense now.
> > Contexts: @Home, @MildDay ... for all of the tasks
> You need tiddlers called "@Home", "@MildDay" etc
> They all should be tagged with "Context"
O.K. So in this case "tag" is again used to say what a thing is.
See, I am confused by the consistency here. For example, why is a
"task" or an "action" not tagged as such. IOW, it is just odd to my
way of thinking that SOME things have to be tagged as to their
identity while others do not need to be.
But now that I know the rule, I can easily follow it ;-)
> If you have all that then your dashboard should be singing along.
COOL!
> > Now as I understand GTD, those are the essential elements. A project,
> > its tasks, the NEXT ACTION(s), and appropriate contexts. If I can
> > enter that simple project then I ought to get a dashboard which will
> > have one project, a list of tasks, and four Next Actions, and I ought
> > to be able to print it to a list of some kind (3x5 would be best). I
> > realize that I also need @Waiting and other contexts as well, but if I
> > get that much working then I should have all the skills necessary to
> > enter other projects where @Waiting would be needed.
> Currently the contexts are the same across all projects. But simply create a
> tiddler called @Waiting and tag it as Context.
Gotcha.
> > I have looked at the various Wiki sites I can find and I have not yet
> > found anything that will help me enter that basic data. I have played
> > with the dashboard, putting in words here and there, mostly at random
> > to see if I could get it to look like a valid project. No luck yet.
> It is a bit of a learning curve. I have basically presumed that the users
> would be a). reasonably experienced with TiddlyWiki already and b). have
> some familiarity with TagglyTagging and use of the 'new here' button. So
> maybe you are getting in at the deep end a little.
Yeah, I am. I have years of programming under my belt so I SHOULD be
able to handle it, but I was just missing something. You know how
there is sometimes one key thing that makes it all fall into place?
I'm not sure I have that key just yet, but I'm getting closer.
I can easily imagine that the finished project would have menu items such as:
- add project
- add sub project
- add task
- add context
- etc.
And, under add task have:
- link to project
- set context(s)
- set priority
- etc.
That kind of thing. You are right, at this stage there is much too
much "fiddling" that has to be done for it to be usable by someone who
does not have a good knowledge of wiki and tagging and such. But then
we all know it is a work in the early stages.
> > Can someone point me to simple instructions to enter that data?
> It's an area that TiddlyWiki is lacking at present, a users guide, or any
> sort of getting started information. I plan to write something like a users
> guide for MonkeyGTD some day but there's nothing at the moment.
Yes, I realize the priorities. Even some of the sites which have
documentation do it rather casually. IOW, some of the guides presume
too much understanding to start with.
When I managed a rather large project I experimented with writing the
documentation and test cases FIRST, then developing the code. It
necessitated some rework, but not as much as you might imagine. And
the upside is that everyone knew what the user was expecting the
product to DO before they coded it. (Sometimes got by the "it works
as coded" excuse ;-)
> So can you create and edit tiddlers in a normal TiddlyWiki?
I got to a basic wiki page before I saw Monkey. I went through it and
it all seemed to be going well. I'm not yet sure why that was.
Perhaps there was less function so it required less input to link
things up? I'm not sure.
> > I took your warning that this is bleeding edge stuff and so if there
> > is no way to do this without the user writing Java or HTML or
> > whatever, I understand and will search for a solution I can use.
> Well like I said you don't need any coding unless you want to start
> customising things. Perhaps just some time getting familiar with TiddlyWiki
> and tagging concepts. You could try this:
> http://simonbaird.com/mptw/#TagglyTaggingTutorial
I'll head over there, thanks ;-)
> > Please don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I love that this is
> > changing every day and getting better and better. I just have not
> > found a way to even enter a task yet!
> Hmm. Okay. Perhaps some of the above is going past you. Short answer, click
> one of the "new" buttons. Or just create a tiddler, tag it with Task.
I think a light went on when you pointed out that I had to tag an
"item" as a "project" or "context" but it defaulted to "task".
Ironically, I might not have fallen into this ole if I had to tag a
"task" as "task" and "next action" as such as well. IOW, if tags were
always required and had to be used in the same way.
> > Pointers to a description of how to use this would be very much
> > appreciated. I looked at the "ABOUT" section but it seems to lead me
> > only to code listings for more information.
> Yeah. I know. No documentation at all makes it hard for new users.
If I get a basic handle on how this all goes together, I'd be happy to
do some straight writing for you. If there is one thing I've done
plenty of it is end user documentation. (I can really imagine I'm
pretty dumb and know nothing at all ;-) ;-)
> > OH, one suggestion … it would be good to have a way to configure this
> > for various things. Right now I'm noticing that the date is in a
> > format not used in the U.S., where I live. It seems to be in DD/MM/YY
> > (which one could argue is more logical ;-) but we use MM/DD/YY and it
> > is going to be hellish to have to do a mental translation for each
> > date. I'd even be willing to struggle with it if it were YY/MM/DD,
> > which has the virtue of sorting properly with no fuss ;-)
> That's a good suggestion to make date format configurable. Here's how to fix
> it now if you need to. Change the DD/MM to MM/DD in ViewTemplate,
> TaskViewTemplate, ProjectViewTemplate, and
> TaskDashboardTemplate. It looks like this:
> ....<span macro='view created date [[DD/MM/YY]]'>...
> ...<span macro='view modified date [[DD/MM/YY]]'>...
Oh great. I can pop that in for now ;-)
Another configurable item would be the starting day of the week on the
calendar. I notice now it is Monday. I think many people are more
used to seeing a calendar start on Sunday. Who knows, for some the
week might start with the weekEND ;-)
> > Anyway, thanks for reading.
> No problem. Thanks for the excellent feedback. My goal is to make it easy
> for an inexperienced user to get started and find help to do the things they
> need to do. It's a long way off at present but we'll get there eventually I
> think.
My pleasure, Simon. I really love to see people who put together
USEFUL things and take feedback.
Thanks again.
--
Cheers,
Mike
Mike De Bruyn
On 3/10/06, Ken Girard <ken.g...@gmail.com> wrote:
> First you need to open a new tiddler, name it "Clean the yard" and tag
> it "Project" & "@Home" and then click done.
O.K.
> Next click on the "New" button next to the priority you want to assign
> the "Rake the leaves" task (I am guessing Now). Name the tiddler that
> will open up "Rake the leaves"
Do you mean "clean the yard"?
> and then put the "Project" tag at the
> front of the list of tags so that it reads "Project Task 2-Now [[Clean
> the Yard]] @Home" & click done.
Hmmmm. O.K. That is new information. The sequence of the tags matters.
Maybe I have an older version. I refreshed yesterday but when I tried
to follow those instructions I got into trouble. I wound up with a
"new tiddler" which would not close, delete, or cancel. I can't get
rid of it. I'll save a copy in case you need info and try to get a
new copy from your site into a new directory and start over.
> Now in the "Rake the leaves" project tiddler click on the "New" button
> next to the priority you want to assign the "Find Leaf Bags" task (I am
> making it Urgent). Name the tiddler "Find Leaf Bags", tag as follows
> "Task 1-Urgent [[Rake the leaves]] Next", hit Done.
>
> Still in the "Rake the leaves" project tiddler click on the "New"
> button next to the Now priority and name the tiddler "Bag the leaves",
> tag as follows "Task 2-Now [[Rake the leaves]]", hit Done.
>
> Now you have broke "Rake the leaves" into it's basics. Same concepts
> work for "Mow the Lawn".
>
> For "Call a lawn service" give it a priority (in the "Clean the yard"
> project tiddler) and add in the tag "@Calls"
>
> Hopefully this makes sense, and really, after you do it one or twice it
> starts getting so you gon't even think about it. For example it took me
> far longer to type this then it did to build all of that in my TW (No
> biggie as I got all the same task coming up anyway).
LOL ;-) Don't we all ;-) I'll try this again when I have a new copy
that does not have an open "new tiddler".
--
Cheers,
Mike
Mike De Bruyn
I closed my "bad" page and saved it to a new directory. When I went
back and opened it again, the problem was gone. IOW, the "new
tiddler" that would not close was gone and I could open a tiddler with
no problem. Who knows? LOL ;-)
--
Cheers,
Mike
Simon Baird
AH, there is where it went all pear shaped for me (as the Brit's say ;-)
See, I'm used to a "thing" having only one "function". IOW, in this
case "tag" is used to distinguish a "project" from a "task" in one
case (where I tagged "clean the yard" as "project"), but then in the
next case the "action" does not need to be tagged as an "action" but
rather it is used to REFERENCE a PARTICULAR project. I think it may
have been that one thing that was blocking my understanding.
Yeah, that's the main concept in TagglyTagging. In a sense we misuse tagging to create hierachical relationships between tiddlers. It's a little strange from a tag purist perspective but let's us do some useful stuff.
O.K. So in this case "tag" is again used to say what a thing is.
See, I am confused by the consistency here. For example, why is a
"task" or an "action" not tagged as such. IOW, it is just odd to my
way of thinking that SOME things have to be tagged as to their
identity while others do not need to be.
A task is tagged as "Task". It needs to be tagged as a Task in order to get the TaskViewTemplate (which is the one with the priority checkboxes etc) and to appear in the right places in the Dashboard. Otherwise it's just a plain old tiddler.
I can easily imagine that the finished project would have menu items such as:
- add project
- add sub project
- add task
- add context
- etc.
At present, with an understanding of 'new here' you almost have that (albeit a little less intuitively for new users) Eg, can click on "Context", click 'new here', and there's a new context.
And, under add task have:
- link to project
It's one of the tags above the task's title.
- set context(s)
set contexts are the checkboxs in the checkbox bar. (Tag a tiddler as "Task" to see them).
- set priority
ditto for priority.
- etc.
I think a light went on when you pointed out that I had to tag an
"item" as a "project" or "context" but it defaulted to "task".
Ironically, I might not have fallen into this ole if I had to tag a
"task" as "task" and "next action" as such as well. IOW, if tags were
always required and had to be used in the same way.
That's not actually correct. A tiddler doesn't default to task. A task is a tiddler tagged with Task. A next action is a Task tagged with Next (in other words a tiddler tagged with Task and Next).
If I get a basic handle on how this all goes together, I'd be happy to
do some straight writing for you. If there is one thing I've done
plenty of it is end user documentation. (I can really imagine I'm
pretty dumb and know nothing at all ;-) ;-)
That would be pretty cool.
Another configurable item would be the starting day of the week on the
calendar. I notice now it is Monday. I think many people are more
used to seeing a calendar start on Sunday. Who knows, for some the
week might start with the weekEND ;-)
That may be possible already but check the doco in CalendarPlugin.
Cheers,
Mike De Bruyn
> > I am not a Java or HTML programmer so maybe this one is not for
> > me?
> Same as you, I am just an old GTDer :)
Well, I'm old, but a NEW GTDer ;-)
> > I have tried to enter a simple project with
> > associated tasks and I can't even get that done.
>
> > Project: Clean the yard (snip)
>
> > Now as I understand GTD, those are the essential elements. A project,
> > its tasks, the NEXT ACTION(s), and appropriate contexts.
> GTD comment :
>
> Next action is not first action of each phase listed in the project,
> but the action you could do now if you have ressources and a little
> time.
> So, usually, for a project you have a single NA.
Yeah, I guess that is so. In this case I purposely made multiple next
actions just to make it a tad more complicated. As I understand GTD
(and I certainly don't want to turn this into a religious fanaticism
-- "the word according to Allen, page 83, verse 3 LOL ;-) you can
have multiple next actions, often in different contexts but in the end
it might just come down to what you FEEL like picking next, from the
possible next actions.
> Here Rake the leaves would be (imho) the NA as soon, as you are in the
> garden context.
> Maybe you could have another NA, in case you are in a phone context :
> Arrange a date with M.Gordon (lawn service) to spray grass (instead of
> : Call a lawn service to spray grass).
True enough. In most cases my choice of next action is more a
question of preference. For example, I could hunt down the gas can to
fill the lawn mower or rake the leaves first, it does not really
matter as they BOTH have to be done before I actually start up the
mower.
> My TiddlyWiki implementation of your case :
> I've just taken your basic case for the new GTD style TW I'm preparing
> (still some CSS, IE and FF problems !) where you'll see my way in
> action.
Cool! ;-)
> In my approach I do not use tiddlers for tasks, but reminders. Thus my
> project tiddlers are really like "folders" holding anything related to
> the project :
> Desired outcome, deadline, notes specific to the project, milestones,
> braindumps for tasks, history records, and NextAction input dialog (ie
> Jeremy Shelley NewReminder).
> So combined with nested sliders buttons from Eric Shulman, when you
> click on a task (showreminder in a context list, or in Date or Calendar
> popup), you have all the related project data you may need to remember
> displayed under your eyes.
That is a big advantage. I kind of like the dashboard idea here, but
I would also like to be able to see a task in perspective.
> Once your project and its two NAs are entered, they are displayed :
> - in today's date popup, in recent popup, in calendar popup, in Garden
> and phone context tabs (First Actions in top menu), in tiddler tabs, in
> tickler list of course.
> They appear too in several dashboard components :
> -Switchable main menus : pending by goals, pending by context, pending
> by contact (thanks to Udo's listTiddlersByTagGrouping), for priorities
> and action.
> -In maintenance menus : tickler list action<->projects, unchecked and
> checked by tags, for reviews, to maintain a "trustable system" as David
> Allen says. Sitemap is very usefull to check completeness and
> coherence. I began to add siteMaps in each of my top level tagging
> tiddlers.
WOW. That is quite a lot of information available.
> I started my adaptation from Eric'site with almost anything hideable,
> so you can have 93% of the screen for the tiddlers you're working on,
That is a good feature as well. Sometimes it is good to clear the
clutter to be able to focus on the task at hand.
> but as it is it works well on my Flock, easily crashes on last FF (I
> wait next release), and I've a nasty javascript block with IE :(
>
> (I'll maybe ask for help in morrow thread ...)
Yeah, IE can be a pain.
> > I have looked at the various Wiki sites I can find and I have not yet
> > found anything that will help me enter that basic data.
> So, even if my PimliPoche2 is not the solution you are looking for, I
> hope it will bring you ideas for your choice :
Could be. I'll have a look.
> http://avm.free.fr/en_PimliPoche2.html
Thanks for the good information.
--
Cheers,
Mike
Mike De Bruyn
I just went through your description, step by step, and it worked just
fine. I will now put in more projects to work it into "muscle memory"
;-) Hopefully, it will just sail along. Thanks very much.
--
Cheers,
Mike
Mike De Bruyn
> > O.K. So in this case "tag" is again used to say what a thing is.
> > See, I am confused by the consistency here. For example, why is a
> > "task" or an "action" not tagged as such. IOW, it is just odd to my
> > way of thinking that SOME things have to be tagged as to their
> > identity while others do not need to be.
> A task is tagged as "Task". It needs to be tagged as a Task in order to get
> the TaskViewTemplate (which is the one with the priority checkboxes etc)
> and to appear in the right places in the Dashboard. Otherwise it's just a
> plain old tiddler.
I saw that when I tried Jacques step by step description. I also saw
how you wind up with subprojects. They are not flagged as such but
when you click on them they open as projects and have tasks (and I
guess even more projects, potentially) under them. Pretty neat.
> > I can easily imagine that the finished project would have menu items such
> as:
> >
> > - add project
> > - add sub project
> > - add task
> > - add context
> > - etc.
> At present, with an understanding of 'new here' you almost have that (albeit
> a little less intuitively for new users) Eg, can click on "Context", click
> 'new here', and there's a new context.
I see that now.
> > And, under add task have:
> >
> > - link to project
> It's one of the tags above the task's title.
Hmmm, I can't find that one. Maybe I'll notice it with some more
fooling around.
> > - set context(s)
> set contexts are the checkboxs in the checkbox bar. (Tag a tiddler as
> "Task" to see them).
Yeah, I fond that now.
> > - set priority
>
> ditto for priority.
>
> > - etc.
I guess what I'm thinking is that in addition to the way it is done
now, to make it more accessible to the end user who ONLY wants to use
GTD, there might be a way of making a logical flow that is just very
simple minded -- I mean that in the sense of not requiring any jumping
around.
> > I think a light went on when you pointed out that I had to tag an
> > "item" as a "project" or "context" but it defaulted to "task".
> > Ironically, I might not have fallen into this ole if I had to tag a
> > "task" as "task" and "next action" as such as well. IOW, if tags were
> > always required and had to be used in the same way.
> That's not actually correct. A tiddler doesn't default to task. A task is a
> tiddler tagged with Task. A next action is a Task tagged with Next (in other
> words a tiddler tagged with Task and Next).
I misunderstood from the previous explanation. I'll have to play more
but I did wind up tagging a task as a task. (I feel SO much better
now ;-) ;-)
> > If I get a basic handle on how this all goes together, I'd be happy to
> > do some straight writing for you. If there is one thing I've done
> > plenty of it is end user documentation. (I can really imagine I'm
> > pretty dumb and know nothing at all ;-) ;-)
> That would be pretty cool.
Just let me know.
> > Another configurable item would be the starting day of the week on the
> > calendar. I notice now it is Monday. I think many people are more
> > used to seeing a calendar start on Sunday. Who knows, for some the
> > week might start with the weekEND ;-)
> That may be possible already but check the doco in CalendarPlugin.
Will do.
--
Cheers,
Mike
brent
I love that this TW lets me work on a project and just write out what I
need to do and when and what I'm waiting for... then it automatically
just generates the action, waiting, reference and someday/maybe lists
all for me.
In GTD, don't sort things by
* 1-Urgent
* 2-Now
* 3-Soon
* 4-Someday
in the dashboard view. David Allen says "You don't manage priorities:
you have them." The important things to view on the front screen are
simply
* The projects on your plate
* actions in those projects (immediately doable right now) sorted by
context
* what you're waiting for
* what's coming up
* reminders.
Either those actions will need doing immediately (in which case DO
them) or they are simply necessary, no priority required - 'now' and
'urgent' are the same thing: how can something be so urgent that you
have time to write it down? Isn't it just the FIRST NOW thing? and for
that matter 'soon' is the same thing as 'now' to some level of
procrastination.
personally i prefer to state each project in absolute terms of what the
universe will look like when it's finished and completed... "Get
healthier" isn't a project: that's a life-direction. How will you know
when you've completed the project "get healthier"? "Lose 15 kg in 6
months" or "Get fit enough to ride 50km in 3 hours" are projects.
I love that you have 'done' as a category - that way you never lose any
information... but keep it off the dashboard screen... the dashboard
should be a thing you can turn on each morning to help you move
forwards in life... the past needs recording but does not need daily
analysis.
I would:
* lose 'Done' from the dashboard, and put what you call 'tasks' in
its place.
* move Next-Actions up into pride of place where 'tasks' was
* make reminders bigger into the gap.
I'm trying to fill out the MonkeyGTD with my own life right now, and
the more I look at it the more I think that you might misunderstand
what 'next' action means in GTD... it seems like you've got all your
priorities all mapped out and linked to projects, then you've gone
through and ticked things one by one to say "i'm going to do this, then
this, then this next."
I think that you've got it so that you click on the 'new' button next
to, say, 'soon' and then a window pops up pre-tagged ... then that task
stays in 'soon' forever unless we choose to grace it with the status of
Next-Action...
I think that's what you mean.
I've changed the priority tags to
* "JFDI" (ie, this is actionable right now),
* Followup (ie, I'm waiting on something or someone),
* Reference (ie, this isn't doable, but it's important
project-related info) and
* Someday/Maybe (I have no current intention of starting this up,
but I might one day exult with the brilliance of my undivided attention
and move it into my Current)
These are the fours categories of 'stuff' that I feel like pumping into
each Project: it occurs to me that there's no more need for Next
actions - or rather, the Next-Action field in the Dashboard ought to be
a printout of the JFDI.
In GTD you don't typically map out future doables... (or rather, you
do, but the action is "Write a plan for preparing for the upcoming
meeting"), only what you're currently trying to achieve and what you're
currently DOING (or could/should be doing) to achieve it. There's no
such thing as "This task could be done right now, but I don't want to
so I'm putting it in my task list so I can ignore it."... instead
there's a seperate list of Tasks To Be Ignored: Someday/Maybe.
The workflow - as I understand (and do) it - is:
look at each of my projects
*decide what I'm going to be working to achieve
*decide the what the very next thing I need to do to move that work
closer to the objective
*decide what I'm waiting on and make sure that my system sets an
appropriate reminder
*decide what I'm not working on and demote it to Someday/Maybe...
then just go about the business of my day, doing things from my
NextAction list and responding to my reminders. If it's on the list,
then JFDI. If you don't intend to do it, don't put it on the list.
So... at the end of my essay - love the work... I think that
stepwise-navigation is going to prove to be essential... I'm going to
try to sort out my own little setup of monkeyGTD, and I just want to
say that it's already 8000 times better than GTDTiddlyWiki. I love it.
Mike De Bruyn
Ah, what a beautiful morning. Fully rested, cats all fed, wife up and
out on her errands, extra large cuppa Java on my warmer and I'm good
to go!
After about an hour, I think I've MASTERED the basics! YooHoo!!!!!
I LOVE that an "item" can be both a "task" and a "project".
I LOVED that there can be (apparently unlimited) levels of subprojects.
I LOVE that an "item" can be a project for multiple tasks and a
subproject for multiple projects. That was really missing in the neat
graphical system I was trying with MindManager Pro 6 and the Results
Manager Add-in. I had to just refer to a shared subprobject in my
notes or duplicate the whole thing. Wasteful.
What is even more interesting is how this will wind up working with
priorities. Here is a situation:
We were planning to move to Sydney for my wife to take her doctorate
in wind conducting. That is on hold for a couple of years but the big
tasks STILL need to be done so that we will be ready if and when we
resume that track. The biggest task is "Downsize". We all have a
life full of "things" which are not essential. I've lived in this
house for almost 30 years so I have more things than most ;-) So
"Downsize" is a key project to get many other things done more easily
and efficiently.
So my "Downsize" project has two subprojects: "Get rid of Misc. Junk"
and "Get rid of Some Furniture". I saw those as different things ...
just because, I guess ;-) No, really, getting rid of furniture
depends a lot on WHERE we move. IF it is an international move we can
take fewer things with us. If it local, more -- and some of the
heavier items can be kept.
O.K. So far so good. Under EACH of those first level sub projects I
have other tasks and subprojects but one of them is "Sell Items on
eBay". The neat thing is that is a subproject for BOTH "Get Rid of
Misc. Junk" and "Get Rid of Some Furniture". That is SO cool, IMO.
What is even more interesting is that the priority of the tasks under
"Sell Items on eBay" have different priorities! NOW I see the value
in multiple priorities. Ah, comes the dawn. LOL ;-) In my case,
since the move has been deferred there is no reason to deal with
furniture right now so that whole subproject and all of it's tasks can
be "Someday". However, I STILL want to get rid of junk as soon as
possible as it is in the way of getting some other things done. So in
THAT case some of the tasks are at LEAST in the "ASAP" category. WAY
COOL!
Now here is a question I've not yet discovered for myself. How does
"inheritance" work, or is there inheretence in any of these tags.
IOW, if I tag a project as "urgent", will all of the subprojects and
tasks inherit that priority unless I override it?
O.K. Back to putting in more stuff. I'm having so much fun with this
now ;-) ;-)
--
Cheers,
Mike
Mike De Bruyn
> Brent's 18c worth:
LOL ;-) My opinions are only worth about $0.02!
> David Allen says "You don't manage priorities:
> you have them."
Yeah, but seems to be more a question of semantics. One can argue
that what you manage is your work, and those things have priority, but
language often allows us to take shortcuts if meaning is not
compromised. Personally, I "manage priorities" by how I schedule
tasks. (And, BTW, I consider selecting NEXT ACTIONS from available
actions to be a scheduling operation. It may not involve
"calendaring" but it is "scheduling", nonetheless.
> The important things to view on the front screen are
> simply
>
> * The projects on your plate
> * actions in those projects (immediately doable right now) sorted by
> context
> * what you're waiting for
> * what's coming up
> * reminders.
>
> Either those actions will need doing immediately (in which case DO
> them) or they are simply necessary, no priority required - 'now' and
> 'urgent' are the same thing: how can something be so urgent that you
> have time to write it down? Isn't it just the FIRST NOW thing? and for
> that matter 'soon' is the same thing as 'now' to some level of
> procrastination.
Now wait a second here ;-) If an action does not need to be done
immediately, it still DOES have a priority. At this moment, Sunday
morning, I'm at home and there is an IMPORTANT meeting which I must
wait until 10:00 Monday morning to have. Priority tells us how the
task affects us, while scheduling tells us when we CAN do it. I think
you might be mixing those two things -- "priority" and "scheduling".
Something CAN be urgent -- but the "context" does not allow one to do
it. To make this maybe a bit absurd, it may be URGENT that I get to
the hospital if I'm ill, but the NEXT ACTION is "Call the ambulance".
The appropriate "next action" does not relate in a simple way to
priority.
> personally i prefer to state each project in absolute terms of what the
> universe will look like when it's finished and completed... "Get
> healthier" isn't a project: that's a life-direction. How will you know
> when you've completed the project "get healthier"? "Lose 15 kg in 6
> months" or "Get fit enough to ride 50km in 3 hours" are projects.
There is a lot written on such things as "well-formed" goals,
outcomes, etc. My take on it is that to be well-formed an "item"
(goal, outcome, result, project, task, action, etc.) must be stated in
a form which enhances the likelihood that we will complete it. I
think it is less important to fuss over what we call it and how we
phrase it than it is to write it so that we will be motivated to
complete it.
I could also argue that "get healthier" is more of a "project" and
"maintain my health" is more of a "focus" or "direction". See the
difference? If I am not "healthy" today, it is a PROJECT for me to
GET healthy -- lose weight, eat properly, get a checkup, exercise,
meditate, etc. If I am healthy NOW, I might notice that I am very
busy and not doing those things which will KEEP me healthy. In this
case, I more need to change my FOCUS so that I KEEP doing what KEEPS
me healthy. (Or, if I'm so inclined, I can STILL see it as a
"project" and treat it as such.)
In any case, no matter what you call it, so long as you are on the
right track -- it's all good. ;-)
> I love that you have 'done' as a category - that way you never lose any
> information... but keep it off the dashboard screen... the dashboard
> should be a thing you can turn on each morning to help you move
> forwards in life... the past needs recording but does not need daily
> analysis.
I agree. I do see that getting rid of some things is a good idea,
however. Resources are not unlimited and the fact that I bought a
quart of milk on the 43rd Tuesday six years ago does not hold much
interest for me. ;-)
One thing that we need to keep in mind, IMO, is that this is a "task
management system", not a "journaling system". To stretch it even
furthter, why not add a bookkeeping module so we could keep track of
bridge tolls and parking expenses? ;-) The answer is that we CAN do
anything. It is only a question of what makes sense for THIS software
to handle.
> * lose 'Done' from the dashboard, and put what you call 'tasks' in
> its place.
Good idea. I would seldom want to look at done tasks. I could afford
to click a few more times to get to a list of done items.
> I'm trying to fill out the MonkeyGTD with my own life right now, and
> the more I look at it the more I think that you might misunderstand
> what 'next' action means in GTD... it seems like you've got all your
> priorities all mapped out and linked to projects, then you've gone
> through and ticked things one by one to say "i'm going to do this, then
> this, then this next."
Yeah, but you don't HAVE to prioritize tasks. In fact, "Someday"
which is treated as a "priority" is recommended as one of only THREE
(I think) statuses of tasks: "action", "next action", "someday maybe"
-- and you don't even HAVE to check that box off. IOW, every task
which is not "someday maybe" is an "action" but only some are "next
actions" and one decides which to ACTUALLY DO RIGHT NOW, by "context".
> I think that you've got it so that you click on the 'new' button next
> to, say, 'soon' and then a window pops up pre-tagged ... then that task
> stays in 'soon' forever unless we choose to grace it with the status of
> Next-Action...
That is only one way to do it. You COULD invoke "new tiddler" and put
in any tags you wish -- or even none, I suppose.
> I think that's what you mean.
>
> I've changed the priority tags to
>
> * "JFDI" (ie, this is actionable right now),
> * Followup (ie, I'm waiting on something or someone),
> * Reference (ie, this isn't doable, but it's important
> project-related info)
Could you just put that information in the big text box associated
with every item? You could do it for projects, subprojects, and
tasks. Do you have a need for it to be an actual item of its own.
> and
> * Someday/Maybe (I have no current intention of starting this up,
> but I might one day exult with the brilliance of my undivided attention
> and move it into my Current)
> These are the fours categories of 'stuff' that I feel like pumping into
> each Project: it occurs to me that there's no more need for Next
> actions - or rather, the Next-Action field in the Dashboard ought to be
> a printout of the JFDI.
You lost me there. It seems as though you've only given "next action"
a new name.
> In GTD you don't typically map out future doables... (or rather, you
> do, but the action is "Write a plan for preparing for the upcoming
> meeting"), only what you're currently trying to achieve and what you're
> currently DOING (or could/should be doing) to achieve it. There's no
> such thing as "This task could be done right now, but I don't want to
> so I'm putting it in my task list so I can ignore it."... instead
> there's a seperate list of Tasks To Be Ignored: Someday/Maybe.
My understanding is a bit different. "Someday Maybe" is ONLY for
things you'd like to do if you had the time, resources, or inclination
-- but you don't at this time in your life. An "action" is something
that you WANT to do but unless it CAN be done NOW (given the
appropriate context) it does not become a NEXT ACTION. So, for
example, in the project "get a haircut", there might be two actions:
"call for appointment", and "Drive to the shop". Only "call for
appointment" is a NEXT action. You can't "drive to the shop" if you
have not made the appointment. (Well, you COULD, but it would be
silly ;-)
> The workflow - as I understand (and do) it - is:
> look at each of my projects
> *decide what I'm going to be working to achieve
> *decide the what the very next thing I need to do to move that work
> closer to the objective
Yes, that is what David Allen advocates. However, personally, I do
more planning. I like to lay out a project in some detail so I know
what "gotchas" lie ahead. When I do that, I often find more things I
can put on my NEXT ACTIONS list ... things I might not have thought of
before. I'm planning to buy a new car soon. The obvious next action
was to get on the Internet and research mileage, etc. When I planned
it out a bit I realized that my FIRST action should be "call insurance
company for information about how car models affect rates". With more
thinking, I realized that I ought to "talk to my mechanic to find out
which models are more reliable". In my experience, planning changes
what you do next.
So you can see, I'm not a fan of that part of David Allen's
methodology -- though I agree in principle.
> *decide what I'm waiting on and make sure that my system sets an
> appropriate reminder
> *decide what I'm not working on and demote it to Someday/Maybe...
I'm still evolving my ideas about that. I need to renovate the master
bath. But before I do that, I need to make room to clear it all out
so work can begin. But before I do that I need to downsize, i.e.
trash some unused stuff. So one might say that I am "not working" on
"renovate the master bath" -- and yet I am. Last weekend I visited a
show room to look at fixtures. I did not NEED to do that now, but I
was in the neighborhood and it made sense. If I put it into "someday
maybe" I might not have done that now -- but I'm glad I did. That is
why I like to plan. Moreover, it offends my sensibilities ;-) to call
a project "someday maybe" if it is THAT PROJECT which is driving the
need to do something NOW. It does not make sense to me.
> then just go about the business of my day, doing things from my
> NextAction list and responding to my reminders. If it's on the list,
> then JFDI. If you don't intend to do it, don't put it on the list.
Yeah, and of course, periodically review the information in the system.
> So... at the end of my essay - love the work... I think that
> stepwise-navigation is going to prove to be essential... I'm going to
> try to sort out my own little setup of monkeyGTD, and I just want to
> say that it's already 8000 times better than GTDTiddlyWiki. I love it.
You said a mouthful there! ;-)
--
Cheers,
Mike
Mike De Bruyn
An observation. (Bug? Feature? ;-)
I was entering projects with subprojects. All was going well. Then
when I tried to enter one (via the route of clicking on the priority
"now" (new) in the tags I got as a containing project the PREVIOUS
SUBPROJECT, not the current PROJECT. Know what I mean. It is as if
it remembered what I did before and would not let it go. I tried
closing everything and so on but nothing helped. Finally I erased the
tag it was prompting me with and put in the correct one and all was
well after that.
I wish I could give you more info but I did not notice the exact sequence.
--
Cheers,
Mike
Mike De Bruyn
Done but with errors on page.
The pop up says:
Line: 4781
Char: 1
Error: Object Expected
Code: 0
URL: file://C:\\Wiki\monkeygtd.htm
Jacques Turbé
But I wonder if it is the best place, and if it wouldn't be better to
restart such a thread on
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Getting_Things_Done : not because it is
really OT here (a lot of us are interested by GTD), but because a lot
of people there should better know what's possible with TW2.x and least
plugins, and not stay on their some months ago oversights.
I think that what "our crop" (as somebody put it) demonstrations today
goes far beyond GTDTiddlyWiki, last being MonkeyGTD (or my PimliPoche2)
: they use TW as a dynamic database, and not just hold and print lists.
What's makes GTDTiddlyWiki great success is its simplicity and ease of
use for the newcomer (even not knowing GTD). It's our challenge to
propose alternatives usable right out of the box by any interested
newcomer :)
Jacques
Simon Baird
* a set of wrapper macros for forEachTiddler so that the templates are 500% easier to read and tweak
* will be fully installable from a single plugin. I think I can package all the templates as shadow tiddlers
* fully configurable, eg if you want to use your own terminology for the tagging of Task/Project/Priority/Context then you can change some config variables. Also date format will be configurable
* less focus on priorities on the dashboard.
I think there is still a need for priorities in some form. Though I'm do admit that in my own experience once anything drops below Now, it might as well be called Never... As for Urgent, I sometimes have a handful or urgent tasks that I do want to write down. I work in IT so, you know... Perhaps priorities are better called categories, so you can have non-priority classifications "followup", "pending" "reference" "someday maybe" "urgent" "now" or whatever.
* some sort of templates for contexts
* some documentation???
* support for subprojects (a task is a project is a task??)
I'm surprised to hear that you guys are tagging a task as a project and doing subprojects! I actually had decided that it wouldn't work! Here's what I want to do in the next version:
** A task is a project is a task
** A task with sub tasks gets a dashboard. A task that has no sub tasks doesn't need a dashboard.
** Should see a list of sub tasks on the dashboard and a new sub task button
** this way the top dashboard is just the same as a project dashboard
Here's a question:
Imagine this structure of tasks/subtasks
* Clean up yard
* mow lawn
* buy petrol
* buy whippersnipper cord
* move hose
* mow
* do edging
* repair fence
* call fence guy
* etc
Now in the Clean up yard dashboard should you see (a) just mow lawn and repair fence, as they are the direct sub tasks of clean up yard, or (b) all sub task descendents, ie should the clean up yard dash show mow lawn and buy petrol and all the others.
Mike De Bruyn
observations along the lines you mention.
On 3/12/06, Simon Baird <simon...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Mike, Brent, Ken etc, thanks for the interesting discussion. I am slowing
> beginning to absorb some GTD concepts! Here's a list of features I'm looking
> at for the next version of MonkeyGTD:
>
> * a set of wrapper macros for forEachTiddler so that the templates are 500%
> easier to read and tweak
I like that idea. I would also like to see some naming convention for
the "system" tiddlers. IOW, on the right side where all the tiddlers
are listed, it would help to NOT see the ones that make the system
work -- or at least name them such that they sort to the bottom and
out of the way.
> * will be fully installable from a single plugin. I think I can package all
> the templates as shadow tiddlers
Is that what I'm looking for ... a "shadow tickler"?
> * fully configurable, eg if you want to use your own terminology for the
> tagging of Task/Project/Priority/Context then you can change some config
> variables. Also date format will be configurable
That would be very helpful.
> * less focus on priorities on the dashboard.
> I think there is still a need for priorities in some form. Though I'm do
> admit that in my own experience once anything drops below Now, it might as
> well be called Never... As for Urgent, I sometimes have a handful or urgent
> tasks that I do want to write down. I work in IT so, you know... Perhaps
> priorities are better called categories, so you can have non-priority
> classifications "followup", "pending" "reference" "someday maybe" "urgent"
> "now" or whatever.
I think you are on the right track there. In this version I see some
confusion between what I call "priority" and what I call "schedule"
and various other attributes. For example:
- "Urgent" is a priority
- "Now", "Someday", and "Next" are scheduling attributes
- "Pending" or "Waiting" or "Done" or "Reminder" or "Tasks" or
"Actions" which are not "Next" are some other kind of hybrid
attribute.
I suppose you could call them all "categories". Or you could classify
them something like I did. Making things more configurable would let
people who have different philosophies do things differently.
> * some sort of templates for contexts
I noticed an interesting behavior. I clicked on the ">" symbol to
collapse all of the priorities. Then I went to edit a context. When
I clicked "done", all of the priorities were expanded again.
One other thing. I initially made a context called "Mild Day". I
later realized that I wanted it to be "@Mild Day, so I made that one.
Now I can't delete "Mild Day".
> * some documentation???
YAY! ;-)
> * support for subprojects (a task is a project is a task??)
> I'm surprised to hear that you guys are tagging a task as a project and
> doing subprojects! I actually had decided that it wouldn't work!
It seems to work very well. I have a number of levels of subprojects.
Pretty neat.
> Here's what
> I want to do in the next version:
> ** A task is a project is a task
> ** A task with sub tasks gets a dashboard. A task that has no sub tasks
> doesn't need a dashboard.
Sounds great.
> ** Should see a list of sub tasks on the dashboard and a new sub task button
> ** this way the top dashboard is just the same as a project dashboard
That sounds good. I have a bit of confusion about the drop downs as
it is now. In some cases it seems as if they relate to the current
project, on others it seems as if they are a complete listing of
projects and tasks.
> Here's a question:
> Imagine this structure of tasks/subtasks
> * Clean up yard
> * mow lawn
> * buy petrol
> * buy whippersnipper cord
> * move hose
> * mow
> * do edging
> * repair fence
> * call fence guy
> * etc
> Now in the Clean up yard dashboard should you see (a) just mow , lawn and
> repair fence, as they are the direct sub tasks of clean up yard, or (b) all
> sub task descendents, ie should the clean up yard dash show mow lawn and buy
> petrol and all the others.
I think that unless the relationships were made very clear, such as
with indentation, I'd like to have just the first level children.
What I am MOST interested in is the children, not the grandchildren,
etc. A click on those would show me those. Another option might be
to have an "expansion" option. IOW, show the first level and then
click one of those ">" do-dads and expand the tree.
Sounds interesting ;-)
--
Cheers,
Mike
Saq Imtiaz
* a set of wrapper macros for forEachTiddler so that the templates are 500% easier to read and tweak
* some documentation???
Both would be terrific, as I'm itching to try out your view templates for other things than just GTD.
Also, I tend to use a more relaxed GTD process than the recommended one, so having some documentation would be of great help in being able to tweak and modify to my liking.
Cheers,
Saq
Mike De Bruyn
I was thinking more about your vision for the Dashboard last night.
The basic GTD work flow is:
- Do all instant Next Actions Immediately ... otherwise
- Define Projects, subprojects, etc. for the Actions
- For each Action
- Assign it contexts
- If it has no "dependency" it is a NEXT ACTION
- If it does have a "dependency" it stays in the project folder/list
until the dependency is satisfied
- At any moment
- Consider your current context
- Look to the list of NEXT ACTIONS for that context
- Do them
- Periodically Review
Now that is just the ESSENTIAL GTD work flow, at least as I understand
it right now (I have not read Allen's book in a couple of years) but I
think it shows how the Dashboard might be changed.
As it is now, the dashboard shows, under contexts, ALL projects and
tasks. What is really needed is a list of only NEXT ACTIONS for each
context. Or, at least to have them somehow marked and sorted to the
top of a list of ALL projects and actions. Maybe in BOLD, for
example? Or maybe the system could (or we could elect to) prepend
something like "P:" to all projects, "A:" to all actions, "SP: to all
subprojects or some workaround like that? Just noodling here ;-)
Just generally there should be a way to mark Projects and Subprojects
so that when they appear in any list they are obviously different than
Actions.
The argument for showing only NEXT ACTIONS under Context is that if I
sit down to make phone calls, I want to see all the calls I can make
NOW, not the calls that I can make only after some dependency is
satisfied. After I get through all of the calls I can make now, even
if there are other calls I should make AFTER I do something else, what
I really want to see is OTHER NEXT ACTIONS, even if they are not
calls. OR, I want to stop and review the containing project for some
call I just made to see how I can move it along in other ways. Maybe
another Call becomes a NEXT ACTION at that point, who knows?
Another thing, for various kinds of lists, is this:
I will often see an Action such as "Check Computer" or something like
that. I have NO IDEA what that means unless I:
1) See it in complete context or,
2) Name each Action with words that give its complete context -- such
as... "Check Computer for Document for List of Items for XYZ Project
for the guy down the hall". Now I really prefer not to have to do all
of that extra typing and I really HATE to see big long lines of words
in extensive lists. I tend to think hierarchically in this context.
;-)
- Do XYZ project
- Give work to guy down the hall
- List of Items to be done
- Find Document
- Check Computer
that kind of thing. If I see "Check Computer" in that hierarchical
context, I know what it's all about.
So perhaps in a list of actions the containing subprojects and
projects can be somehow appended? Or shown in a hierarchical tree?
Or something?
Part of my problem with the listings I have, now that I have put in
maybe half of the projects I have going on in my life, is that the
list is so long and chaotic. I mean I now have a list of NEXT
ACTIONS, listed nicely in a pale pink background, but since there is
no indication of context I don't know where to start. I am confronted
with doing a mini-review to figure out what to do next. Likewise, if
I show a context like "@Calls" I have a list of NEXT ACTIONS
intermixed with projects, subprojects and Actions with dependencies.
Have any of you put in a substantial number of real life items? What
has your experience been?
--
Cheers,
Mike
brent
I'm going to be able to wade through all this and comment (I really
want to, because this is, like, my pet topic right now).
I'd like to make a couple of comments anyway:
Firstly, GTD _clearly_ means different things to different people. GTD
is supposed to be versatile - David Allen never says "These are the
lists you must have", it's personal and entirely dependent on your own
requirements.
I think we could go around and around in circles trying to help Simon
pin down the right dashboard layout and end up helping no-one.
I think that the current setup is good - great even, and certainly the
functionality is right. I [skim] read how simon intends to shiny it all
up and make it a bit more user-tweakable, and I think that might do the
trick for most people for now. I think you'll end up hearing about some
fantastically innovative [ie, obvious] setups in the very near future.
Secondly, I did want to quickly relate how I personally have my GTD
lists setup in TW.
I use MPTW because it's got all that tagging goodness that seems to
just _work_.
I have an @INBOX, a Someday/Maybe, a WaitingFor and a bunch of
just-lists (CDs to buy, things to get from bunnings, phrases i don't
get... whatever)
The accepted level of 'stuff' in my @INBOX is zero. Things go in there
before they go in my system.
The Someday/maybe list is pretty formatless.
WaitingFor is just
* 2006-03-01 waiting on quote from laser cutter
* 2006-03-02 gave jobsheet to toolmaker - due 2006-03-14
The bulk of my TW is a few project-tiddlers. I have a seperate tiddler
for each of my 3 main projects, and numerous minor ones, and I write
the current objective(s) with their next action like this
__Current prototype design verified__
*Put prototype in test rig for 3000 cycles.
__Drawings for project up to date__
*Spend 1 hour going through the drawings to make a list of changes that
need to be made
__Statement of what the universe will look like when this objective is
completed__
*The very next thing I need to do to move the universe closer to that
point.
I must confess that sometimes I'm guilty of @@highlighting@@ things to
make it stand out more - so, yes, there is such a thing as
prioritising... eg, things that my boss tells me to do get written in
my project tiddler... things that HIS boss (the MD) tells me to do get
written in @@big shiny letters@@
Also, I think it's fair to nest:
__Objective__
*First actions
**bleedingly-obvious subsequent task
**bleedingly-obvious subsequent task
But I have noted that it's senseless to think that these are anything
but putative plans: something that starts as
__Current prototype design verified__
*Put prototype in test rig for 3000 cycles.
**Get signoff on drawings based on success of new component design
will invariably turn into
__Current prototype design verified__
*Put prototype in test rig for 3000 cycles.
**Discover design has obvious fatal flaw
**Check with Managing Director whether component is locked into the
next catalogue release in 3 weeks. (yes)
**Call emergency meeting to redesign component from scratch
**Bully toolmakers into pushing through overnight juryrigged next
generation prototype
**you get the picture.
When I'm done with something I kill it. I delete it. It's no longer in
my radar, I don't need to think about that 'stuff' any more to fulfill
my primary goal: meet my KPIs this quarter to get my bonus to put a
roof over my family's head.
To combat the forces of entropy, and avoid just losing a grasp on my
productiveness I've been keeping a Tiddler Journal (my first ever TW
tweak was to work out how to auto insert today's date in the right
format and the tag 'journal' to the NewJournal button :) ) where I keep
track of things like agreements, task-completion, plan changes.
Basically I've been using it as a record of whatever the heck I've
actually been spending my time on, in case I'm ever asked, or in case I
ever want to review myself [and I intend to].
Also, I've put a private SVN repository on my C:/ drive purely for the
purpose of keeping a historical record of my TW.
What I don't like about my setup is that I have to actually physically
use the power of my own brain to read through my individual project
tiddlers to decipher the next action needed. I want to have a macro
that trawls through all my tiddlers and just picks out what I need to
act on. That way, throughout the day I can refer to that ONLY and JFDI
- a trick I am yet to master.
Likewise, I want to stop having to manually type in when I'm waiting
for something. I want to have a macro that delivers all the things I'm
waiting for, regardless of where I recorded it.
I want to WRITE these things in the individual things in the project
tiddler - because that's where I do all my thinking - and READ them on
a front screen.
I'm excited by monkeyGTD because I think it's going to make it dirt
simple to do that.
So, I'm going to settle down now and try to respond to what you guys
wrote.
Mike De Bruyn
On 3/13/06, brent <evil...@gmail.com> wrote:
> so - I've just put the kids to bed and I am wrecked,
LOL ;-)
> I do not know if
> I'm going to be able to wade through all this and comment (I really
> want to, because this is, like, my pet topic right now).
Yeah, me too!
> I'd like to make a couple of comments anyway:
> Firstly, GTD _clearly_ means different things to different people. GTD
> is supposed to be versatile - David Allen never says "These are the
> lists you must have", it's personal and entirely dependent on your own
> requirements.
Actually, that is one of the strong points of his "system". No two
people work in exactly the same way.
> I think we could go around and around in circles trying to help Simon
> pin down the right dashboard layout and end up helping no-one.
We could, but I think it is versatile enough to accommodate different
ways of working. I hope a lot can be done through end user
configuration choices. Date format is a simple example. But there
may be an easy way to parametrise something like what is included in a
list and have an end user interface to set the parameter.
> I think that the current setup is good - great even, and certainly the
> functionality is right. I [skim] read how simon intends to shiny it all
> up and make it a bit more user-tweakable, and I think that might do the
> trick for most people for now. I think you'll end up hearing about some
> fantastically innovative [ie, obvious] setups in the very near future.
I'm excited as well!
> Secondly, I did want to quickly relate how I personally have my GTD
> lists setup in TW.
This is really very helpful.
> I use MPTW because it's got all that tagging goodness that seems to
> just _work_.
> I have an @INBOX, a Someday/Maybe, a WaitingFor and a bunch of
> just-lists (CDs to buy, things to get from bunnings, phrases i don't
> get... whatever)
So are these just a whole slew of Tasks with contexts like "@Buy CDs"?
Or do you have a single task like "Buy CDs" and then list them in the
comments section?
> The accepted level of 'stuff' in my @INBOX is zero. Things go in there
> before they go in my system.
Could you explain that in a bit more detail. When I think of
something I need to do I immediately create a project or an Task for
it. What is the advantage of an @INBOX?
> The Someday/maybe list is pretty formatless.
You call it a "list". What is that in the context of Monkey? A Task
with a list in the comments section? A bunch of Tasks? (Maybe there
is a function I have not seen yet.)
> WaitingFor is just
> * 2006-03-01 waiting on quote from laser cutter
> * 2006-03-02 gave jobsheet to toolmaker - due 2006-03-14
That brings up an interesting idea. A way to automagically date stamp
the tasks that go into the @Waiting context.
> The bulk of my TW is a few project-tiddlers. I have a seperate tiddler
> for each of my 3 main projects, and numerous minor ones, and I write
> the current objective(s) with their next action like this
> __Current prototype design verified__
> *Put prototype in test rig for 3000 cycles.
> __Drawings for project up to date__
> *Spend 1 hour going through the drawings to make a list of changes that
> need to be made
> __Statement of what the universe will look like when this objective is
> completed__
> *The very next thing I need to do to move the universe closer to that
> point.
So you are not putting Tasks in (under Projects)? IOW, you have ONLY
three (for example) "items" and they are Projects with Next Actions in
the comments box?
> I must confess that sometimes I'm guilty of @@highlighting@@ things to
> make it stand out more - so, yes, there is such a thing as
> prioritising... eg, things that my boss tells me to do get written in
> my project tiddler... things that HIS boss (the MD) tells me to do get
> written in @@big shiny letters@@
Yeah, the REAL WORLD has priorities ;-)
> Also, I think it's fair to nest:
> __Objective__
> *First actions
> **bleedingly-obvious subsequent task
> **bleedingly-obvious subsequent task
LOL ;-)
> But I have noted that it's senseless to think that these are anything
> but putative plans: something that starts as
> __Current prototype design verified__
> *Put prototype in test rig for 3000 cycles.
> **Get signoff on drawings based on success of new component design
> will invariably turn into
> __Current prototype design verified__
> *Put prototype in test rig for 3000 cycles.
> **Discover design has obvious fatal flaw
> **Check with Managing Director whether component is locked into the
> next catalogue release in 3 weeks. (yes)
> **Call emergency meeting to redesign component from scratch
> **Bully toolmakers into pushing through overnight juryrigged next
> generation prototype
> **you get the picture.
ROTFLMAO ;-) Yeah, and I think that is why DA advises to NOT plan
very much. I guess with me it is so obvious (after years as a systems
analyst / business analyst) that plans change. I NEVER take plans as
something in concrete. They are more to guide my thinking and help me
avoid falling in.
> When I'm done with something I kill it. I delete it. It's no longer in
> my radar, I don't need to think about that 'stuff' any more to fulfill
> my primary goal: meet my KPIs this quarter to get my bonus to put a
> roof over my family's head.
I also don't see much point in a "done" list. However, I do see that
some people are motivated by seeing what they have accomplished. In
any case, it is not much harder to "delete" an action than to mark it
done and leave it hanging around.
> To combat the forces of entropy, and avoid just losing a grasp on my
> productiveness I've been keeping a Tiddler Journal (my first ever TW
> tweak was to work out how to auto insert today's date in the right
> format and the tag 'journal' to the NewJournal button :) ) where I keep
> track of things like agreements, task-completion, plan changes.
> Basically I've been using it as a record of whatever the heck I've
> actually been spending my time on, in case I'm ever asked, or in case I
> ever want to review myself [and I intend to].
This is EXACTLY how I have worked for years in a paper system. My
system consisted of:
- A "chron file". Basically a ring binder where I put everything in
order as it came across my desk. (Or a copy. Or in some cases just a
copy of the first page with a note where the entire Requirements
Analysis Document is filed -- which makes it a kind of ad hoc index to
files as well.)
- A "daily log book", is really the heart of it all. I write
EVERYTHING there. ToDos, meeting notes, phone log, I tape in business
cards, I have a contact list taped inside the front cover. I never
let that out of my clutches and if I needed to know ANYTHING I ever
did ... it was right there.
- Of course, I had a calendar book and files and such, but if I were
lost at sea ;-) and I had that daily log, I'd be able to function.
If I'm having one big challenge it is the queasy feeling I get when I
think of doing it all on a laptop or Palm. I feel so much more secure
with paper. (My "binky" LOL ;-)
Right now, I have a separate desk top journal running. In a complete
system I'd hope to see a journaling function as well. I'd love to see
each entry automagically date/time stamped.
> Also, I've put a private SVN repository on my C:/ drive purely for the
> purpose of keeping a historical record of my TW.
>
> What I don't like about my setup is that I have to actually physically
> use the power of my own brain to read through my individual project
> tiddlers to decipher the next action needed. I want to have a macro
> that trawls through all my tiddlers and just picks out what I need to
> act on. That way, throughout the day I can refer to that ONLY and JFDI
> - a trick I am yet to master.
Ah, the Holy Grail ;-) But it will come some day. If you describe
your project in enough detail a sufficiently well designed AI system
could to just that. But I'd not hold my breath ;-)
> Likewise, I want to stop having to manually type in when I'm waiting
> for something. I want to have a macro that delivers all the things I'm
> waiting for, regardless of where I recorded it.
Does the "@Waiting" context not work for you? IOW, just mark a task
with that context and add notes to the comment area if you wish.
> I want to WRITE these things in the individual things in the project
> tiddler - because that's where I do all my thinking - and READ them on
> a front screen.
Mmmm... I'm not sure what you mean there.
> I'm excited by monkeyGTD because I think it's going to make it dirt
> simple to do that.
> So, I'm going to settle down now and try to respond to what you guys
> wrote.
Cool. I need to do a lot more thinking about this stuff and your (and
other's) ideas help very much.
--
Cheers,
Mike
brent
>> Brent's 18c worth:
> LOL ;-) My opinions are only worth about $0.02!
I was actually referring to how much of my opinion I was giving, rather
than how much it's worth ;)
> Now wait a second here ;-) If an action does not need to be done
> immediately, it still DOES have a priority. At this moment, Sunday
> morning, I'm at home and there is an IMPORTANT meeting which I must
> wait until 10:00 Monday morning to have. Priority tells us how the
> task affects us, while scheduling tells us when we CAN do it. I think
> you might be mixing those two things -- "priority" and "scheduling".
It's possible. In my job there aren't that many appointments, but those
I do have aren't prioritised, they're commitments. My calendar/diary
handles those sorts of things. I don't see that, other than "prepare
for meeting" the meeting needs to make into any of my GTD lists.
The calendar/diary is a part of my GTD system, but I try to not record
anything in both places.
> Something CAN be urgent -- but the "context" does not allow one to do
> it.
Ok. Personally I've only really got two contexts, @work and @home, and
I only tend to use GTD at work... so I'm always in the one context.
Urgent things just get done.
Also, I'm "lucky" enough to have blisteringly clear priorities "brent,
your project is going to be a flagship product for this company. Any
other concern is insignificant. Waste no time."
> There is a lot written on such things as "well-formed" goals,
> outcomes, etc. My take on it is that to be well-formed an "item"
> (goal, outcome, result, project, task, action, etc.) must be stated in
> a form which enhances the likelihood that we will complete it. I
> think it is less important to fuss over what we call it and how we
> phrase it than it is to write it so that we will be motivated to
> complete it.
wise advice. I'm new to this game, and I'll think about this. Although,
I have to confess that I'm a sucker for semantics. I find precise
language soothes my soul... and conversations about how to make it more
precise excite me.
> One thing that we need to keep in mind, IMO, is that this is a "task
> management system", not a "journaling system". To stretch it even
> furthter, why not add a bookkeeping module so we could keep track of
> bridge tolls and parking expenses? ;-) The answer is that we CAN do
> anything. It is only a question of what makes sense for THIS software
> to handle.
I advise using SVN if you want a historical record. I personally use
the journal feature, but I don't see a GTD point in keeping endless
ranks of used/abused tiddlers.
>
> > I've changed the priority tags to
>
> > * "JFDI" (ie, this is actionable right now),
> > * Followup (ie, I'm waiting on something or someone),
> > * Reference (ie, this isn't doable, but it's important
> > project-related info)
>
> Could you just put that information in the big text box associated
> with every item? You could do it for projects, subprojects, and
> tasks. Do you have a need for it to be an actual item of its own.
ATM I have a big text box for each project, and write everything in
plain text (with TW formatting).
What I like about MonkeyGTD (as I wrote earlier) is that I can WRITE in
the project headspace/dashboard and READ(DO) in the main dashboard.
> You lost me there. It seems as though you've only given "next action"
> a new name.
yes. Or rather, I had gone through and given a label to all the things
I want to do with my 'stuff' and realised that I didn't need this label
NextAction anymore - I'd already assigned it's content to a different
tag.
>
> I like to lay out a project in some detail so I know
> what "gotchas" lie ahead. When I do that, I often find more things I
> can put on my NEXT ACTIONS list ...
Depends on the work. Personally, perhaps because I'm relatively
inexperienced, I find that the plan always misses the real gotchas, and
I end up thinking up more possible actions that could be done on the
project in a month's time... only to realise that by that time the
project doesn't LOOK like that in a month's time and it's all wasted
planning.
> With more
> thinking, I realized that I ought to "talk to my mechanic to find out
> which models are more reliable". In my experience, planning changes
> what you do next.
Is it possible that (this is deliberately semantic) what you need is
more thinking, not more planning? What called your planning phase
didn't bring new actions into existence, it just highlighted them for
you. In effect what you did FIRST was "rough out natural plan of buying
a car to try to realise what the first step is". Then you've got two
data: the first NextAction "talk to my mechanic" and a putative plan:
__Buy a new car soon__
*talk to my mechanic to find out which models are more reliable
**call insurance company for information about how car models affect
rates
*** get on the Internet and research mileage, etc.
where the subtasks are pending until the main task is resolved... but
what if your mechanic says "Are you kidding? The junk on the market
these days? None of them are any good and I refuse to service them."
Sure, it's best to have a plan. But as far as GTD is concerned, it's
just a draft until you make the firm decision to do it, and then it's a
personal commitment.
> Last weekend I visited a
> show room to look at fixtures. I did not NEED to do that now, but I
> was in the neighborhood and it made sense.
I think it's semantics again... it is "Someday... maybe" or
"Someday/maybe"?
One thing David Allen wrote, I think in his blog, is that he found a
hidden beautiful experience in having his ENTIRE life mapped out in
GTD: he was had some spare gardening time and looked at his lists and
realised he needed to do X now, and then looked at his garden and
realised how dearly he wanted to prune Y now and did so... but he did
so knowing full well that his garden-maintenance system was intact.
I had a similar experience recently... I have the next 6 months'
reading all mapped out and prepared... and I recently just picked up
Atlas Shrugged and dove right in even though - BECAUSE it's not my
list. It felt really good - I'm not blowing off my reading-plan, I'm
just trusting that my system has recorded all my hopes and desires and
I can go back to them when I feel like it.
ok, stopping making sense now. goodnight.
brent
It'd be nice to present a GTD-orthodox "here-you-are", but I think
we've shown this weekend that we need to actually pin down what
GTD-orthodox really means...
Mike De Bruyn
> >> Brent's 18c worth:
> > LOL ;-) My opinions are only worth about $0.02!
> I was actually referring to how much of my opinion I was giving, rather
> than how much it's worth ;)
;-)
> > Now wait a second here ;-) If an action does not need to be done
> > immediately, it still DOES have a priority. At this moment, Sunday
> > morning, I'm at home and there is an IMPORTANT meeting which I must
> > wait until 10:00 Monday morning to have. Priority tells us how the
> > task affects us, while scheduling tells us when we CAN do it. I think
> > you might be mixing those two things -- "priority" and "scheduling".
> It's possible. In my job there aren't that many appointments, but those
> I do have aren't prioritised, they're commitments. My calendar/diary
> handles those sorts of things. I don't see that, other than "prepare
> for meeting" the meeting needs to make into any of my GTD lists.
O.K. I see what you mean with regard to meetings. Bad example on my
part. Here is a different example: "Get Gas for Car". It might be
very important to do, but I know I am not going to use the car for two
days and if I leave the house 15 minutes early I'll have time to get
it on the way. So in this case it is important, but not something I'm
going to do immediately.
Your use of the term "commitment" threw me for a minute. I don't know
whether a commitment is a scheduling concept or not. I think if it
has time attached, it is. I'm not sure what to call it if no time is
attached. Or does it even make sense to have a commitment for
something we will do "someday"? Interesting ;-)
> The calendar/diary is a part of my GTD system, but I try to not record
> anything in both places.
I also practice that, as much as I can.
> > Something CAN be urgent -- but the "context" does not allow one to do
> > it.
> Ok. Personally I've only really got two contexts, @work and @home, and
> I only tend to use GTD at work... so I'm always in the one context.
> Urgent things just get done.
I use it for my personal life as well. I have areas of interest which
I like to organize tasks for. I also have major home projects I'm
doing.
Ah. I took DA literally about what "context" means and so I have:
- @MildWeather (I can work in the garden)
- @LateFall (I need to winterize the house)
- @Wife (things we need to discuss)
- @LowEnergy (things I can do when I'm fuzzy)
- @Vet (things I need to talk to the vet about)
- etc.
Sometimes I'm not even sure if I want something to be a context or
not. With people, it comes down to how much I interface with them.
Right now I'm doing a bit of vet work for my cats so it makes sense to
me to keep a context for the vet. But I don't have a context for MY
doctor ;-) I am pretty healthy and don't see him often.
> Also, I'm "lucky" enough to have blisteringly clear priorities "brent,
> your project is going to be a flagship product for this company. Any
> other concern is insignificant. Waste no time."
Yeah, that does make it easier.
> > There is a lot written on such things as "well-formed" goals,
> > outcomes, etc. My take on it is that to be well-formed an "item"
> > (goal, outcome, result, project, task, action, etc.) must be stated in
> > a form which enhances the likelihood that we will complete it. I
> > think it is less important to fuss over what we call it and how we
> > phrase it than it is to write it so that we will be motivated to
> > complete it.
> wise advice. I'm new to this game, and I'll think about this. Although,
> I have to confess that I'm a sucker for semantics. I find precise
> language soothes my soul... and conversations about how to make it more
> precise excite me.
LOL ;-) Same here. I do fuss a lot, but I try to keep the goal in
sight. For example, my preference is not to use the term "sub
project" when I really mean "outcome". (Or what in PERT/CPM is called
"milestone".)
I think one reason I'm having some trouble with "context" is that it's
USE is not completely consistent with respect to it's real meaning.
Likewise "priority". "Done" is not a priority! "Someday" is not
really a priority either, but it only IMPLIES a priority.
I think one of the more troublesome terms is "Next Action". Is it the
ONLY action I can do next? For this project or for ANY project? My
usage is: this action has no dependencies other than contextual so it
can be done NOW if the context is right. Some day I'll think of a
better term for it.
> > One thing that we need to keep in mind, IMO, is that this is a "task
> > management system", not a "journaling system". To stretch it even
> > furthter, why not add a bookkeeping module so we could keep track of
> > bridge tolls and parking expenses? ;-) The answer is that we CAN do
> > anything. It is only a question of what makes sense for THIS software
> > to handle.
> I advise using SVN if you want a historical record. I personally use
> the journal feature, but I don't see a GTD point in keeping endless
> ranks of used/abused tiddlers.
What is SVN? And yes, I delete done items.
> > > I've changed the priority tags to
> > > * "JFDI" (ie, this is actionable right now),
> > > * Followup (ie, I'm waiting on something or someone),
> > > * Reference (ie, this isn't doable, but it's important
> > > project-related info)
> > Could you just put that information in the big text box associated
> > with every item? You could do it for projects, subprojects, and
> > tasks. Do you have a need for it to be an actual item of its own.
> ATM I have a big text box for each project, and write everything in
> plain text (with TW formatting).
> What I like about MonkeyGTD (as I wrote earlier) is that I can WRITE in
> the project headspace/dashboard and READ(DO) in the main dashboard.
OH! Comes the dawn ;-) I have just started to do that. I got so
tired of putting in all the actions for distant tasks that I just
wrote them as bullet items in the notes section and it IS easier to
see them that way. There is no need to make tasks of them if they are
not even on the horizon yet.
> > You lost me there. It seems as though you've only given "next action"
> > a new name.
> yes. Or rather, I had gone through and given a label to all the things
> I want to do with my 'stuff' and realised that I didn't need this label
> NextAction anymore - I'd already assigned it's content to a different
> tag.
O.K. Gotcha. I'm going to do that when I think of a better name than
"next action" ;-)
> > I like to lay out a project in some detail so I know
> > what "gotchas" lie ahead. When I do that, I often find more things I
> > can put on my NEXT ACTIONS list ...
> Depends on the work. Personally, perhaps because I'm relatively
> inexperienced, I find that the plan always misses the real gotchas, and
> I end up thinking up more possible actions that could be done on the
> project in a month's time... only to realise that by that time the
> project doesn't LOOK like that in a month's time and it's all wasted
> planning.
Yes, that can happen. And you are right, it CAN be a result of
inexperience. But that cuts both ways. With experience you are more
apt to think of more relevant things. OTOH, when doing something new,
it is often much more helpful to brainstorm even if much of it turns
out to be irrelevant. Contingencies fall into that category. You
really need to allow for them but they often don't happen so the
planning is "wasted". But, like insurance, sometimes you hope a plan
is not implemented ;-)
> > With more
> > thinking, I realized that I ought to "talk to my mechanic to find out
> > which models are more reliable". In my experience, planning changes
> > what you do next.
> Is it possible that (this is deliberately semantic) what you need is
> more thinking, not more planning?
Yes, that is a good distinction. I tend not to think without a pencil
so thinking and planning seem very similar to me.
> What called your planning phase
> didn't bring new actions into existence, it just highlighted them for
> you. In effect what you did FIRST was "rough out natural plan of buying
> a car to try to realise what the first step is". Then you've got two
> data: the first NextAction "talk to my mechanic" and a putative plan:
> __Buy a new car soon__
> *talk to my mechanic to find out which models are more reliable
> **call insurance company for information about how car models affect
> rates
> *** get on the Internet and research mileage, etc.
> where the subtasks are pending until the main task is resolved... but
> what if your mechanic says "Are you kidding? The junk on the market
> these days? None of them are any good and I refuse to service them."
That is a good example. But the more likely outcome is that I would
be planning to buy a truck and he would tell me that I'm insane with
gas prices this high-- I really ought to buy a bicycle. (This is too
trivial, of course as I already know that ;-)
> Sure, it's best to have a plan. But as far as GTD is concerned, it's
> just a draft until you make the firm decision to do it, and then it's a
> personal commitment.
Yes. I think it may be a bias or maybe a blind spot for me. I do
tend to over plan as a personality trait.
> > Last weekend I visited a
> > show room to look at fixtures. I did not NEED to do that now, but I
> > was in the neighborhood and it made sense.
> I think it's semantics again... it is "Someday... maybe" or
> "Someday/maybe"?
> One thing David Allen wrote, I think in his blog, is that he found a
> hidden beautiful experience in having his ENTIRE life mapped out in
> GTD: he was had some spare gardening time and looked at his lists and
> realised he needed to do X now, and then looked at his garden and
> realised how dearly he wanted to prune Y now and did so... but he did
> so knowing full well that his garden-maintenance system was intact.
Yes. My problem with this whole thing in the context of planning is
that in order to have one's whole life mapped out takes planning. I
am definitely including things in my plan that I may not get to for 10
years. BUT ... it gets them off my mind. I know that they are not
"lost" but safely tucked away should the spirit ever move me ;-)
> I had a similar experience recently... I have the next 6 months'
> reading all mapped out and prepared... and I recently just picked up
> Atlas Shrugged and dove right in
Be very careful. I picked that up one night (in 1965 or so, IIRC) and
when I next looked up it was time for breakfast! That book can suck
you right in ;-)
> even though - BECAUSE it's not my
> list. It felt really good - I'm not blowing off my reading-plan, I'm
> just trusting that my system has recorded all my hopes and desires and
> I can go back to them when I feel like it.
EXCELLENT POINT. I think I tend to forget that aspect of it. I guess
I recognize it implicitly when I say I have things 10 years out that I
know are safely tucked away.
> ok, stopping making sense now. goodnight.
Actually, you are making PERFECT sense. Sometimes these
autobiographical examples are more useful because they are real.
Thanks for the good information.
Nighty nite ;-)
--
Cheers,
Mike
brent
> configuration choices. Date format is a simple example. But there
> may be an easy way to parametrise something like what is included in a
> list and have an end user interface to set the parameter.
A lot can be done through configuration.
If I could rearrange the windows I think I'd be able to rejig the
dashboard to my own liking, I just don't know the code.
> So are these just a whole slew of Tasks with contexts like "@Buy CDs"?
> Or do you have a single task like "Buy CDs" and then list them in the
> comments section?
:) actually, I can't afford to buy CDs... so it's a moot point.
I guess it's just lists of information I don't want to feel slipping
through my fingers. My personal GTD is all over the place - shoddy
even.
My @work lists are project specific because I'm _always_ at work, so
it's always the same context. I tried to have @phone, @email and
@CAD... but I have all three of those things permanently available so
the concept of context never gave me any productiveness.
> > The accepted level of 'stuff' in my @INBOX is zero. Things go in there
> > before they go in my system.
>
> Could you explain that in a bit more detail. When I think of
> something I need to do I immediately create a project or an Task for
> it. What is the advantage of an @INBOX?
I'm a pretty flappable person. When things occur to me I need to have a
brainless place to record them, otherwise one of two things happens:
* I get sidetracked on this new adventure and forget what I was
originally doing
* I don't get sidetracked but I forget forever the new information.
I try to write things in the right spot, but sometimes have to
acknowledge that this isn't the right time/place to make that decision.
I have a physical inbox where I can throw sticky-notes, I have a white
board. I have a big pad on my desk. I just write stuff and throw it in
the inbox. I chuck ANY piece of paper you give me into my inbox without
really looking at it. All my incoming emails go into my inboxes. My
desk is an inbox, I always keep it fastidiously clean, there's nothing
flapping about on it that I don't deliberately intend to be there... so
if something IS flapping around it's "inbox".
I very regularly go through all these inboxes and empty them. Sticky
notes prompt me to make a call, print a doc, whatever, then get thrown
out. White-board diagrams get sketched, put into projects etc, then
erased. Pads from my desk get scribbled out. Bits of paper get looked
at and deciphered... emails get shunted into appropriate folders. My
desk gets cleaned.
Basically, if I let something come into one of my Inboxes then I am
making a personal commitment to - if not actually acting - at least
putting that 'stuff' into my GTD system somewhere, or killing it on the
spot.
My TW gets am inbox, just because it's handy.
> > The Someday/maybe list is pretty formatless.
>
> You call it a "list". What is that in the context of Monkey?
Uh, I dunno. I just have a simple text list in a tiddler.
> So you are not putting Tasks in (under Projects)? IOW, you have ONLY
> three (for example) "items" and they are Projects with Next Actions in
> the comments box?
yes. I think.
getting late here.
I have never ending projects, with thousands of mini-objectives. I
don't ATM assign GTD-projects (bounded objectives) to seperate
tiddlers. I think that monkeyGTD is going to make that possible.
> If I'm having one big challenge it is the queasy feeling I get when I
> think of doing it all on a laptop or Palm. I feel so much more secure
> with paper. (My "binky" LOL ;-)
As much as it costs me to say it, I think that a palm just doesn't have
the usabilitiness... it's too darn hard to write notes and
manage/create text. It's a _fabulous_ tool if you're job is out and
about, or if you live by a different clock each day, but it won't help
plan or construct anything.
I only use my palm these days for carrying ebooks around, and for the
couple of games it's got.
> Right now, I have a separate desk top journal running. In a complete
> system I'd hope to see a journaling function as well. I'd love to see
> each entry automagically date/time stamped.
that's what I love about the newJournal button: it majically brings up
a journal page for today, dated properly and with a journal tag, and it
always brings up TODAY's journal if I want to continue one I started
earlier in the day.
I hit newJournal... type away, save and close. Later in the day when
stuff has happened, I hit newJournal... type away, save and close.
Later in the day when stuff has happened, I hit newJournal... type
away, save and close.
Honestly, TW is the first _cool_ software i've found that does that for
me. It's as (being honest) functional as a plain text file, with the
single benefit being that it's always one click away.
>
> > Also, I've put a private SVN repository on my C:/ drive purely for the
> > purpose of keeping a historical record of my TW.
>
> > What I don't like about my setup is that I have to actually physically
> > use the power of my own brain to read through my individual project
> > tiddlers to decipher the next action needed. I want to have a macro
> > that trawls through all my tiddlers and just picks out what I need to
> > act on. That way, throughout the day I can refer to that ONLY and JFDI
> > - a trick I am yet to master.
>
> Ah, the Holy Grail ;-) But it will come some day. If you describe
> your project in enough detail a sufficiently well designed AI system
> could to just that. But I'd not hold my breath ;-)
No. MonkeyGTD does it. I swear. It just needs configuring.
> Does the "@Waiting" context not work for you? IOW, just mark a task
> with that context and add notes to the comment area if you wish.
Yes. I think so.
And, I think you yourself brought up this beautiful beautiful beautiful
goodness of MonkeyGTD: it can be both things at once... both in my
project-dashboard, under the tag of P### (our project number) AND under
the tag @Waiting, at one and the same time!!!
I no longer need to decide whether this 'stuff' belongs here, or here,
and wrangle out my semantics to arbitrarily choose... I can just all in
both, and then look in different places to find them depending on what
headspace I'm in. Now, I'm not pretending that MonkeyGTD invented tags,
but simon has found a way to make the PRESENTATION of this dual-nature
of items intuitively obvious.
> > I want to WRITE these things in the individual things in the project
> > tiddler - because that's where I do all my thinking - and READ them on
> > a front screen.
>
> Mmmm... I'm not sure what you mean there.
I want to WRITE:
> !P001
> __first goal__
> *scratch my nose
> > wait for new nose-scratcher to be delivered
>
> __second goal__
> *have a nap
>
> !P002
> > don't do anything on this project until after I've had a nap
>
> !P003
> *write a plan for what to do after my nap
> **do something after the nap
and I want to READ:
> @Next-actions
> *"scratch my nose"
> *"have a nap"
> *"write a plan for what to do after my nap"
>
> @Waiting
> > wait for new nose-scratcher to be delivered
> > don't do anything on this project until after I've had a nap
I go into the headspace of P001, P002 and P003 and work out what on
earth is going on... then hit 'go' and I have a bunch of actions mapped
out for me... none of which are reliant on anything else, and which can
be done in any order - time permitting. I also have the computer going
through all of my open projects and slurping things that I've marked as
being waiting... I've WRITTEN in one place, but I have an immediate
picture of everything that I'm waiting for... no thinking required.
> Cool. I need to do a lot more thinking about this stuff and your (and
> other's) ideas help very much.
Likewise: I think I'm about 25% of my way towards understanding how to
manage myself, and I need to think about what you write.
Thanks.
brent
>What is SVN?
SVN is a version control system. It's very sell supported and
documented.
SVN stands for SubVerSion. I use tortoiseSVN (googleable) which is a
windows explorer friendly version.
Basically the idea is that you have a repository which stores all your
files, and you (or any number of users) take a working copy to edit and
play with. Then when you're ready, you commit your changes, SVN records
the CHANGES ONLY, and updates the repos.
If someone else commits their changes before you, then SVN tries to
merge the changes or gives conflict errors if it can't (it usually
can).
The beauty is that it records, forEVER, a complete copy of every
version of every document you ever touched, who changed, when they
changed it, what they changed, what they SAID they changed (you can set
it so the user HAS to enter a log message)... and unwanted changes can
be rolled-back or branched off...
it means that you never need worry about saving over anything ever
again, save ANYWAY, and if you're wrong, just delete it and go back to
how it was yesterday... or last march. It means that you're document
can always be CURRENT, without losing the historical record.
It eliminates the need for complex file-renaming structures in official
company documents: you don't need "Company mission statement
3.4.6.2.doc" and then tell everyone to throw out their links to 3.4.6.2
when the new CEO comes in and replaces it with the new, sparkly
3.4.6.3... you just call the document "company mission statement" and
change the repos.
Mike De Bruyn
HOLY COW. I just discovered I can tag something as DASHBOARD and I
titled mine +INBOX and it popus up right in front. Will this never
cease to do new neat things?
GO TO BED ;-)
--
Cheers,
Mike
walt
> http://simonbaird.com/monkeygtd/
Hey, Simon: I am loving this; it's brilliant (to the point that i'm
prepared to "put my life into it" now, having just read David Allen's
GTD book over the weekend; this looks like the closest thing to a
usable implementation of all the most important functions that i've
been able to find in any one package).
The problem that confronts me now is all the example content - which
has been a great thing for quick program orientation, but now i'm
looking for an easy way to delete all that and populate a clean
template from scratch. I thought maybe the "SaveEmptyTemplate"
function (under "AdvancedOptions" would do it for me, but that yield an
"empty.html" file that lacks all the programatic value that you've
layered onto TiddlyWiki, apparently. Is there any way to do this,
easier than deleting all the sample content tiddlers one-by-one?
That's about the only thing that appears missing to me, Simon; it sure
looks like you've thought of everything else that matters. Kudos, man
- and thanks a heap. Yours, |/|/
Mike De Bruyn
> The problem that confronts me now is all the example content - which
> has been a great thing for quick program orientation, but now i'm
> looking for an easy way to delete all that and populate a clean
> template from scratch. I thought maybe the "SaveEmptyTemplate"
> function (under "AdvancedOptions" would do it for me, but that yield an
> "empty.html" file that lacks all the programatic value that you've
> layered onto TiddlyWiki, apparently. Is there any way to do this,
> easier than deleting all the sample content tiddlers one-by-one?
You know. I too expected a useful "save empty" but wasted more time
fooling with that than simply deleating what I did not want. It only
took a few minutes to "edit" then "delete" what I wanted. Only a few
projects and tasks a reminder and that is about it. Should take you
basically no time.
--
Cheers,
Mike
walt
than it seemed on first glance, as i quickly found by deleting them.
What gave me pause was the long list of tiddlers in the "All" view -
most of which are related to functionality and/or display - but when i
switched to "Timeline" view, i could quickly see the examples Simon
introduced (one sequence of actions in a single day), i was able to
pick and delete all pretty quickly. Thanks! |/|/
Mike De Bruyn
Let us know your experience as you implement. You'll probably find
somethings fit naturally and others are not quite as you'd like.
Simon seems eager for feedback and VERY helpful.
--
Cheers,
Mike
Larry
Priority to Project and have a little problem. It lists them fine, but
it cuts off the first 3 letters in the project name. It does it no
matter how short the name is.
I also did it with a clean copy of MonkeyGTD and it does the samething.
Thought maybe something in my CSS was monkeying it up. I am not sure
where to look to make the changes. Not sure why changing Priority to
Project would affect how it is displayed.
This is the bit I changed, just the Task to Project:
<<forEachTiddler
where 'tiddler.tags.contains("Project")'
sortBy 'tiddler.title'
write
'"@@font-size:80%;padding-left:0.5em;[[" + tiddler.title.substr(2)
+"|"+ tiddler.title + "]]@@ "+
/// display a count (by Clint)
"(<<forEachTiddler where \n" +
" \'tiddler.tags.containsAll([\"Task\",\""+tiddler.title+"\"])
&& "+
" !tiddler.tags.contains(\"Done\")\'\n" +
" script \'function writeTotalTasks(index, count) {if (index
== 0) return count; else return \"\";}\' "+
"write \'writeTotalTasks(index,count)\'$)))" +
/// end display a count
Any ideals?
Mike De Bruyn
some dependencies there were only two ways to handle them:
1) Make the containing item a Project and have the dependencies as
tasks or sub projects or,
2) Make the containing item a Project and have the dependencies just
listed in the notes section. However there is then no way to set
individual priorities or contexts.
I just discovered two more ... you can make the containing item EITHER
a Project or a Task and then TAG it with other items. That gives the
effect of #2, but allows you to manage the dependencies as items.
Will the wonder of it all never end? ;-)
--
Cheers,
Mike
Paul Petterson
Mike De Bruyn
> I was looking at your dashboard and would like to lay things out my own way.
> How about something, macro or whatever, for the main chunks (like Tasks by
> Context, Next Action, Reminders, etc...) you display in the dashboard (I'm
> thinking project taskboard, but the global dashboard would be a good
> candidate too).
>
> You might consider using shadow tiddlers for these sections instead of
> wrapper macros - they're easier to customize. Then the dashboard itself
> could also be a shadow tiddler that simply includes the section tiddlers
> with formatting. Then you include the dashboard tiddler in whatever
> template you want.
I think Simon already has that on his TODO list. ;-)
> I like the notion of sub-tasks or sub-projects (taggly tasking?) :) I keep
> doing that and then backing it out... Love too see what you come up with!
I started doing that and now I'm not sure I'm going to go that way after all.
I wanted to do that because of the way I think when I plan. I start
with the end result "WorldDomination" ;-) and back up through subtasks
to the initial actions taken to star the ball rolling "Find Phone Book
to Look up Mercenary Army" ;-)
What I now realize is that "organization" is the only function served
by many of my "projects". IOW, they are not TRUE projects, but only a
way to group various other tasks so they can be considered together.
Know what I mean?
That being the case, I think what I actually want, rather than a
"grouping project" is a TAG. DUH! I think the whole idea of "tags"
has escaped me so far. For example:
Suppose I want to manage my car to keep it in tip top shape. My
"project" would be:
- Maintain the car
My subprojects and action items would be:
- Check the oil and other fluids every Saturday morning
- Change the oil every 3,000 miles
- Check the tire pressure
- etc.
But the same purpose is served if I just enter the last three as
activities and TAG each one with "MaintainCar".
The advantage is it gives me one less thing to look at in the ever
growing project list ;-)
My current question is how to easily access the tags to find the
grouped tasks. IOW, I can get to "priority" tags and "context" tags
easily enough, there are items on the Dashboard to access them. But
if I make up a series of "grouping tags" maybe looking like
"&MaintainCar" is there some easy way to get to everything tagged with
that tag? I know I can do it once I get to ONE task with that tag,
but I'm not sure I can do it if I don't see that task right away.
Thoughts?
--
Cheers,
Mike
walt
experience quite natural and liberating (being new to both the
principles and the application, i enjoy the beginner's advantage). The
only chronic pain at this point is the delay on tiddler create or
update - which problem is aggravated by this error msg that is
triggered by each update, as a rule (i.e. ""Warning: Unresponsive
script :: a script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped
responding. You can stop the script now, or you can continue to see if
the script will complete." Given the 2 exit options - continue, or
stop script - i always choose former, which seems to work. What's up
w/ this, i wonder?). I'm using Firefox 1.5.0.1 on Mac OS 10.4.5; if
there's a browser/version on my machine that would work better for this
app, i'd be happy to try it (i'm that hooked on the program :-).
Before putting my life into this program, tho, i'm still feeling the
need to know that the separation of data (mine) from logic and
presentation (TW and MonkeyGTD) is there, so i can upgrade the
program/skin and preserve my content whenever there's a change i want
to adopt. If this is so, then i must have missed the upgrade HowTo
(can anyone give pointage?). If not... then i shall remain hesitant to
make heavy commitment of personal data.
Also, i wonder about outputs: are there print outputs (like those
available in GTD Tiddly Wiki) for printing out in handy form (e.g. 3x5
index card, i.e. "Hipster PDA," format)? Will the TiddlyWikiPod app for
Mac OS X (a neat way to get TW content onto one's iPod) work with this
as it does with TW original? (PS: am testing this now; it's failing
to work ATM.) Again, it's kinda the same question: If there's any
HowTo about data output options/ portability (besides the obvious idea
of saving the .html file onto a thumbdrive), i'd love to read it at
this point.
Finally, one little usability issue for dessert: a calendar input
(initiated by clicking day on the graphical view) does not refresh the
calendar view (which should now display w/ the date underlined), tho
one can easily refresh by moving to former or next month and back,
using arrow key. Not significant enough to warrant a patch (tho if the
upgrade procedure requested above were easy enough, i'd be happy to do
it for any patch that Simon might care to provide). Keep on truckin',
man! |/|/
Mike De Bruyn
Hope you finally quit fooling with this and got some sleep ;-)
> >What is SVN?
> SVN is a version control system. It's very sell supported and
> documented.
AH, Got it. I have some years experience with Configuration
Management behind me. Good stuff.
That makes it much easier than the old numbering system we used to
use. Fantastic.
--
Cheers,
Mike
Mike De Bruyn
On 3/13/06, brent <evil...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I hope a lot can be done through end user
> > configuration choices. Date format is a simple example. But there
> > may be an easy way to parametrise something like what is included in a
> > list and have an end user interface to set the parameter.
> A lot can be done through configuration.
> If I could rearrange the windows I think I'd be able to rejig the
> dashboard to my own liking, I just don't know the code.
This system could tempt me to learn. It is very powerful.
> > So are these just a whole slew of Tasks with contexts like "@Buy CDs"?
> > Or do you have a single task like "Buy CDs" and then list them in the
> > comments section?
> :) actually, I can't afford to buy CDs... so it's a moot point.
;-)
> I guess it's just lists of information I don't want to feel slipping
> through my fingers. My personal GTD is all over the place - shoddy
> even.
I started my reformation with Alan Lakein
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0451167724/104-0791831-8380766?v=glance&n=283155
about 30 years ago, as I might have mentioned. The fist set of
exercises are goal setting exercises. Nothing unique, but it is
something that has to be done or your personal life takes a back seat
to your job.
Once I had my life goals, and 20,10,5,3,1 year goals down, I saw where
everything important fit. It was then that I set up "projects" or
"categories" to organize my personal goals. Every system I've used
has been just a way of getting me to focus on getting to those
personal goals.
As to the "buy CDs" kind of thing -- it goes into a general bucket I
call various things, but basically it is just a long list with
everything from "buy CDs" to "renew driver's license" to "shop for
food". The daily living stuff. I don't track that but I do write it
down for efficiency's sake. (Don't you just hate it when you are on
an errand and you are RIGHT THERE at the grocery store but don't have
your list?)
> My @work lists are project specific because I'm _always_ at work, so
> it's always the same context. I tried to have @phone, @email and
> @CAD... but I have all three of those things permanently available so
> the concept of context never gave me any productiveness.
I can see that. It will probably be more productive if you do a goal
setting exercise and find out that you really WILL be a happier person
if you:
- Learn to ski
- Learn to speak Urdu
- Write the Great American Novel
etc. ;-)
> > > The accepted level of 'stuff' in my @INBOX is zero. Things go in there
> > > before they go in my system.
> > Could you explain that in a bit more detail. When I think of
> > something I need to do I immediately create a project or an Task for
> > it. What is the advantage of an @INBOX?
> I'm a pretty flappable person. When things occur to me I need to have a
> brainless place to record them, otherwise one of two things happens:
> * I get sidetracked on this new adventure and forget what I was
> originally doing
> * I don't get sidetracked but I forget forever the new information.
LOL ;-) You sound like me. I have just a touch of ADD (it was worse
when I was a child), I have just a touch of dyslexia, I am interested
in EVERYTHING so I am easily distracted.
I had a hard time explaining to my wife what it is like being inside
my head. She is a great multi-tasker (a band director for middle
school and high school, so you can just imagine). She could not GET
why I wanted her to NOT interrupt me in the middle of even simple
things. I finally reminded her of the story of Hansel and Gretel and
how they dropped bread crumbs so they could find their way back out of
the woods. I told her that interrupting me with another task while I
was in the middle of this one was like her being one of those crows
who ate the bread crumbs. I just could not find my way back! She
FINALLY got it ;-) She does not "understand it", but she ACCEPTS it
;-) Now when she has gotten me to my fourth level of interrupt I just
say: "ACK, I lost my breadcrumbs!"
> I try to write things in the right spot, but sometimes have to
> acknowledge that this isn't the right time/place to make that decision.
Yeah. I can waste time categorizing.
> I have a physical inbox where I can throw sticky-notes, I have a white
> board. I have a big pad on my desk. I just write stuff and throw it in
> the inbox. I chuck ANY piece of paper you give me into my inbox without
> really looking at it. All my incoming emails go into my inboxes. My
> desk is an inbox, I always keep it fastidiously clean, there's nothing
> flapping about on it that I don't deliberately intend to be there... so
> if something IS flapping around it's "inbox".
I think about it the same way EXCEPT, my desk is NOT my inbox. I keep
it clear so ONLY what I am working on is on the desk ... then it is
filed.
> I very regularly go through all these inboxes and empty them. Sticky
> notes prompt me to make a call, print a doc, whatever, then get thrown
> out. White-board diagrams get sketched, put into projects etc, then
> erased. Pads from my desk get scribbled out. Bits of paper get looked
> at and deciphered... emails get shunted into appropriate folders. My
> desk gets cleaned.
> Basically, if I let something come into one of my Inboxes then I am
> making a personal commitment to - if not actually acting - at least
> putting that 'stuff' into my GTD system somewhere, or killing it on the
> spot.
Great discipline.
> My TW gets am inbox, just because it's handy.
I finally understood what you were doing and created this in my TW:
+ * + INBOX + * +
With "dashboard" as it's ONLY tag.
So it is easily put at the top of things and I put the flotsam and
jetsam in the comments box until I clear it. GREAT idea! Thanks!!!!!
> > > The Someday/maybe list is pretty formatless.
> > You call it a "list". What is that in the context of Monkey?
> Uh, I dunno. I just have a simple text list in a tiddler.
O.K. You seem to be using TW more like I used a word processor to
keep notes before I tried this. I'd just have pages where I'd put
lists of things organized any way that seemed to work.
> > So you are not putting Tasks in (under Projects)? IOW, you have ONLY
> > three (for example) "items" and they are Projects with Next Actions in
> > the comments box?
> yes. I think.
> getting late here.
Where is "here"? I'm in Gaithersburg, Maryland, U.S.A. You must be
pretty far east of me.
> I have never ending projects, with thousands of mini-objectives. I
> don't ATM assign GTD-projects (bounded objectives) to seperateHv
> tiddlers. I think that monkeyGTD is going to make that possible.
I think so. Right now I'm working through one which one of these
approaches makes more sense:
1) Have containing projects for everything with tasks underneath.
2) Have tasks WITHOUT containing projects and just group them with
tags. I.E. a tag for each thing they are in support of.
My confusion is that I got to using "project" as a way of organizing.
I have not worked out in my mind what makes a project really a
project. Right now I'm guessing that it has more to do with having a
definite goal with a lot of dependent steps that benefit from analysis
and planning. Still noodling over that one.
> > If I'm having one big challenge it is the queasy feeling I get when I
> > think of doing it all on a laptop or Palm. I feel so much more secure
> > with paper. (My "binky" LOL ;-)
> As much as it costs me to say it, I think that a palm just doesn't have
> the usabilitiness... it's too darn hard to write notes and
> manage/create text. It's a _fabulous_ tool if you're job is out and
> about, or if you live by a different clock each day, but it won't help
> plan or construct anything.
> I only use my palm these days for carrying ebooks around, and for the
> couple of games it's got.
I think DA recommends using it for contacts and appointments, mostly.
Even there he does not use categories ... he just uses the search
feature to find stuff.
To the extent I use a palm at all, I enter data into the PC and sync
it with the palm. Entering data into the palm itself is an exercise
in masochism.
> > Right now, I have a separate desk top journal running. In a complete
> > system I'd hope to see a journaling function as well. I'd love to see
> > each entry automagically date/time stamped.
> that's what I love about the newJournal button: it majically brings up
> a journal page for today, dated properly and with a journal tag, and it
> always brings up TODAY's journal if I want to continue one I started
> earlier in the day.
> I hit newJournal... type away, save and close. Later in the day when
> stuff has happened, I hit newJournal... type away, save and close.
> Later in the day when stuff has happened, I hit newJournal... type
> away, save and close.
DOH! I did not even see that! How neat.
> Honestly, TW is the first _cool_ software i've found that does that for
> me. It's as (being honest) functional as a plain text file, with the
> single benefit being that it's always one click away.
Yeah. Right now I have a separate thing running in my tool tray. I
also had computer post its for a while. I'd love to have ONLY ONE
application to manage everything.
> > > Also, I've put a private SVN repository on my C:/ drive purely for the
> > > purpose of keeping a historical record of my TW.
> >
> > > What I don't like about my setup is that I have to actually physically
> > > use the power of my own brain to read through my individual project
> > > tiddlers to decipher the next action needed. I want to have a macro
> > > that trawls through all my tiddlers and just picks out what I need to
> > > act on. That way, throughout the day I can refer to that ONLY and JFDI
> > > - a trick I am yet to master.
> > Ah, the Holy Grail ;-) But it will come some day. If you describe
> > your project in enough detail a sufficiently well designed AI system
> > could to just that. But I'd not hold my breath ;-)
> No. MonkeyGTD does it. I swear. It just needs configuring.
That would be amazing.
> > Does the "@Waiting" context not work for you? IOW, just mark a task
> > with that context and add notes to the comment area if you wish.
> Yes. I think so.
And also now see you can add context to the journal entries as well.
> And, I think you yourself brought up this beautiful beautiful beautiful
> goodness of MonkeyGTD: it can be both things at once... both in my
> project-dashboard, under the tag of P### (our project number) AND under
> the tag @Waiting, at one and the same time!!!
Yeah, how cool is that? I'm really starting to see the powerful
simplicity of tagging. In a way it reminds be of OOPS. You don't so
much say how you are going to use something, you just define WHAT it
is and then it all sorts itself out later. As you said earlier, it
gets past the whole problem of categorizing in advance. If it is a
project you tag it, if it is also a task -- you tag it; if you are
waiting for something -- add that tag; if you need to discuss it with
someone -- just tag it that way. It pops up all over the place when
you need to see it.
> I no longer need to decide whether this 'stuff' belongs here, or here,
> and wrangle out my semantics to arbitrarily choose... I can just all in
> both, and then look in different places to find them depending on what
> headspace I'm in.
LOL ;-) Someday I'll learn to read ahead ;-)
> Now, I'm not pretending that MonkeyGTD invented tags,
> but simon has found a way to make the PRESENTATION of this dual-nature
> of items intuitively obvious.
Yeah. It seems as if every time I look for a way to do something ...
it's just THERE!
> > > I want to WRITE these things in the individual things in the project
> > > tiddler - because that's where I do all my thinking - and READ them on
> > > a front screen.
> > Mmmm... I'm not sure what you mean there.
> I want to WRITE:
> > !P001
> > __first goal__
> > *scratch my nose
> > > wait for new nose-scratcher to be delivered
> > __second goal__
> > *have a nap
;-)
> > !P002
> > > don't do anything on this project until after I've had a nap
> > !P003
> > *write a plan for what to do after my nap
> > **do something after the nap
> and I want to READ:
> > @Next-actions
> > *"scratch my nose"
> > *"have a nap"
> > *"write a plan for what to do after my nap"
> > @Waiting
> > > wait for new nose-scratcher to be delivered
> > > don't do anything on this project until after I've had a nap
I get it.
> I go into the headspace of P001, P002 and P003 and work out what on
> earth is going on... then hit 'go' and I have a bunch of actions mapped
> out for me... none of which are reliant on anything else, and which can
> be done in any order - time permitting. I also have the computer going
> through all of my open projects and slurping things that I've marked as
> being waiting... I've WRITTEN in one place, but I have an immediate
> picture of everything that I'm waiting for... no thinking required.
Yeah. I can see that. Right now I really want to see "tasks" listed
by context. As it stands, projects are listed by context and that is
not useful to me.
> > Cool. I need to do a lot more thinking about this stuff and your (and
> > other's) ideas help very much.
> Likewise: I think I'm about 25% of my way towards understanding how to
> manage myself, and I need to think about what you write.
> Thanks.
No, thank YOU ;-)
--
Cheers,
Mike
Simon Baird
Simon.
Simon Baird
They are actually named 1-Urgent, 2-Now, 3-Someday etc.
So if you name your project 1-ProjectName it will work right.
Or to fix it properly,
replace this
tiddler.title.substr(2)with this
tiddler.titlewhere ever you find it in ProjectViewTemplate and TaskDaskboardViewTemplate.
This sorting hack will be gone in the next release.
Simon.
Simon Baird
There's something a bit like that coming in the next release. But I hadn't thought of using this
<div macro="tiddler SomeTiddler"></div>
in a template. Might be useful.
Cheers,
Simon.
Simon Baird <simon...@gmail.com>
Simon Baird
"&MaintainCar" is there some easy way to get to everything tagged with
that tag? I know I can do it once I get to ONE task with that tag,
but I'm not sure I can do it if I don't see that task right away.
Thoughts?
Yes. If you haven't already you must do the TagglyTagging tutorial now! ;)
http://simonbaird.com/mptw/#TagglyTaggingTutorial
Nothing to do with GTD, but I think it will answer your question and give you a hint as to how tasks/subtasks are going to work.
Simon.
--
Simon Baird <simon...@gmail.com>
Simon Baird
triggered by each update, as a rule (i.e. ""Warning: Unresponsive
script :: a script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped
I means that the script is taking a long time to run. I don't have a good solution. Usually it runs pretty quick on my PC.
Before putting my life into this program, tho, i'm still feeling the
need to know that the separation of data (mine) from logic and
presentation (TW and MonkeyGTD) is there, so i can upgrade the
program/skin and preserve my content whenever there's a change i want
to adopt. If this is so, then i must have missed the upgrade HowTo
(can anyone give pointage?). If not... then i shall remain hesitant to
make heavy commitment of personal data.
All your data is in plan tiddlers with tags. So there's nothing special that MonkeyGTD does with your data so basically it's as solid as a normal TiddlyWiki.
Sorry to say Upgrade howtos and any other documentation doesn't exist! If you can bear to wait it might be worth holding off until the next version.
Also, i wonder about outputs: are there print outputs (like those
available in GTD Tiddly Wiki) for printing out in handy form (e.g. 3x5
index card, i.e. "Hipster PDA," format)? Will the TiddlyWikiPod app for
I think that just requires a few styles so it's possible.
Mac OS X (a neat way to get TW content onto one's iPod) work with this
as it does with TW original? (PS: am testing this now; it's failing
to work ATM.) Again, it's kinda the same question: If there's any
HowTo about data output options/ portability (besides the obvious idea
of saving the .html file onto a thumbdrive), i'd love to read it at
this point.
Not sure but in theory you can use any TW plugin on top of MonkeyGTD.
Simon Baird
I've got some work to do on the behind the scenes stuff so the new improved version might be a few days or weeks away. I'd love to get it out faster but work, sleep and other commitments prevent.
I'm following the ideas and discussions happening on this thread. I'll try to incorporate most of them into the next release. I'm hoping that the Project/Task/SubTask stuff will become a lot clearer with some upcoming changes and that it will be extremely easy to configure your layouts task classification schemes.
Thanks again for all the enthusiastic and construcive comments.
--
Simon Baird <simon...@gmail.com>
Larry
Morgan Wise
Great stuff! I have been working with it all morning and you have a
great system going here. I have a couple of observations and a
question.
I like that everything is project centric, but it would be nice to have
some project-level operations. For instance, the Projects list in the
Dashboard should have a new button. It would be nice to have a way to
export and/or delete entire projects. Right now deleting the project
tiddler does not impact the tasks at all.
You might think about taking the new buttons off the tasks in the
Dashboard and having them only on the Project view. The Dashboard
behavior right now creates a new task in a seemingly random project.
Here is my question. I deal with a lot of projects with similar tasks.
Since each task is its own tiddler, I cannot have the same title for
two different tasks. So I end up with tasks with the project name in
them. i.e. Pull Data for Project 1, Pull Data for Project 2, etc. On
the other hand, I have tasks that repeat each month, i.e. Report 1 Jan
06, Report 1 Feb 06, etc. Is there a better way of doing this? The
biggest issue is that I need to have separate reminders and completion
flags for each task.
Simon Baird
On 14/03/06, walt <wlud...@gmail.com> wrote:
triggered by each update, as a rule (i.e. ""Warning: Unresponsive
script :: a script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped
I means that the script is taking a long time to run. I don't have a good solution. Usually it runs pretty quick on my PC.
brent
> them. i.e. Pull Data for Project 1, Pull Data for Project 2, etc. On
> the other hand, I have tasks that repeat each month, i.e. Report 1 Jan
> 06, Report 1 Feb 06, etc. Is there a better way of doing this?
P2, P45, P79?
GTD would put those monthly tasks into your calender, and checking the
advanced warnings from your calender encompasses part of checking your
horizons. Don't write things in two places.
brent
> setting exercise and find out that you really WILL be a happier person
> if you:
>
> - Learn to ski
> - Learn to speak Urdu
> - Write the Great American Novel
> etc. ;-)
actually, I did this a short while ago. I found it a calming
exercise... didn't set off too many huge life changes (2nd kid was 2
months old at the time... was going through plenty of life-changes to
start with TYVM :-) )... but let me feel less like I was drifting and
more like I was coasting.
> > > > The Someday/maybe list is pretty formatless.
> > > You call it a "list". What is that in the context of Monkey?
> > Uh, I dunno. I just have a simple text list in a tiddler.
>
> O.K. You seem to be using TW more like a word processor to
> keep notes
Yeah, I guess I have been, and I think it's working against me. I'm
planning to butcher all those text lists and farm their content out to
tiddlers and tags... and let the Project Dashboard sort it all for me.
I guess that a large part of what got me excited about TW was simply
that it was cool. It seemed like a pretty place to store my precious
Lists. Now I see that I need to kill my Lists and move onwards and
upwards.
> Where is "here"? I'm in Gaithersburg, Maryland, U.S.A. You must be
> pretty far east of me.
quite far... 10,000km or so, in Melbourne australia :-)
> Yeah. I can see that. Right now I really want to see "tasks" listed
> by context. As it stands, projects are listed by context and that is
> not useful to me.
I think it's becoming clear that TW is going to be most useful when you
break work down almost to its most atomic units in single tiddlers,
then let the Dashboard-type structure build it back up into a Plan.
I think DA would approve of that.
brent
> need to know that the separation of data (mine) from logic and
> presentation (TW and MonkeyGTD) is there, so i can upgrade the
> program/skin and preserve my content whenever there's a change i want
> to adopt. If this is so, then i must have missed the upgrade HowTo
> (can anyone give pointage?). If not... then i shall remain hesitant to
> make heavy commitment of personal data.
Walt,
I found it pretty easy to use the importTiddlers feature to import all
my stuff from one TW to another.
That comes with a neat GUI.
I think that as long as you're willing to commit to tiddlers then you
wouldn't have any problem skipping about between skins and versions. I
can't see anyone rushing to build a TW-Excel converter or anything so
if you wanted to move away from TW and back to something more orthodox
like Palm or Outlook then you'd most likely have a lot of copy/pasting
on your hands...
I also recommend tortoiseSVN to you to keep track of your versions.
That way you can rest safe in the knowledge that screwing everything up
won't screw everything up...
Brent
Morgan Wise
flag for all projects. I need to flag the task for each project.
It is the name space that causes the problem. I cannot have two
tiddlers with the same name, "Pull Data". So, I have to qualify "Pull
Data" with the project name.
Ken Girard
You cannot have multiple tiddlers named the same thing. The title
becomes the id of the <div> that the tiddler is stored in and is the
way that TW can tell tiddlers apart. There is even a safety feature
installed so that if you have a tiddler called "Pull Data", and then
make a new tiddler called "Pull Data" it will give you an alert asking
if you want to write over the old one.
As to the reminders you could try something like <<reminder date:1
title:"Send Report for Project 1">> and it will repeat on the first of
each month. You can add the month and get a yearly repeat for things
like birthdays.
Ken Girard
Mike De Bruyn
To respect Jacques wish, I'm CCing this to the GTD group on Yahoo!
His request was to especially let those folks in on our GTD theory
discussion.
For the benefit of the Yahoo group: The context here was that Brent
said his GTD world was simple because his work world was very
structured and he did not use it in his personal world because ...
well, just because he left that area of his life unstructured and
unplanned, for the most part. Here is a snip from that previous
exchange:
------------------------
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0451167724/104-0791831-8380766?v=glance&n=283155
---------------------------------
So now you have the context for this discussion ;-)
On 3/15/06, brent <evil...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I can see that. It will probably be more productive if you do a goal
> > setting exercise and find out that you really WILL be a happier person
> > if you:
> > - Learn to ski
> > - Learn to speak Urdu
> > - Write the Great American Novel
> > etc. ;-)
> actually, I did this a short while ago. I found it a calming
> exercise...
Yes, it does have a calming effect.
> didn't set off too many huge life changes (2nd kid was 2
> months old at the time... was going through plenty of life-changes to
> start with TYVM :-) )... but let me feel less like I was drifting and
> more like I was coasting.
Yes, exactly. Even if you can't see any way to change your life, just
knowing what you want and why you are not going after some parts of it
now gives the feeling that you are ultimately in control. "I'd love
to speak Urdu for our vacation this summer, but with the kids and
all... and if I don't work some OT I won't be able to PAY for that
vacation." ;-)
> > > > > The Someday/maybe list is pretty formatless.
> > > > You call it a "list". What is that in the context of Monkey?
> > > Uh, I dunno. I just have a simple text list in a tiddler.
> > O.K. You seem to be using TW more like a word processor to
> > keep notes
> Yeah, I guess I have been, and I think it's working against me. I'm
> planning to butcher all those text lists and farm their content out to
> tiddlers and tags... and let the Project Dashboard sort it all for me.
That is where I am as well. Now if I could only get a list of tasks
within context I'd be a happy camper. Well, until the next tweak
occurred to me ;-}
And it is really the best approach to take to start with this. I was
somewhat overwhelmed because I HAD my whole life set up in MindManager
with the ResultsManager plug-in. I had a beautifully visual MAP of my
life. LOL ;-) Where I and my project to get the vet work done for
the cats, I even had a PICTURE of each cat instead of the cat's name.
Talk about ADD ;-) ;-) But it WAS purty ;-)
But my point is that it was already all broken down and I was simply
trying to transfer it to TW. My problem was that I had to deal
INSTANTLY with projects, tasks, tags, priorities, contexts, etc. Your
approach is easier. You have your large aggregates with notes under
them. Now you can break out pieces at your leisure and not have to do
the whole thing in one big gulp. If I were writing documentation for
this I'd lead a new user that way to start so they would get their
feet wet gradually and not be trying to sip from a fire hose!
> I guess that a large part of what got me excited about TW was simply
> that it was cool. It seemed like a pretty place to store my precious
> Lists. Now I see that I need to kill my Lists and move onwards and
> upwards.
LOL ;-) Been there ;-) You don't want to try MindManager. Talk
about pretty. It will suck you down the primrose path. The thing is
that while ResultsManager does have a dashboard, it's not as slick as
TW. IOW, you have to RUN the dashboard, it is not "just there" for
you. And, I guess, it is not nearly as flexible if you want to change
it. OH, and it takes a donkey's age to run -- maybe three or four
full minutes to create a dashboard. Plus, there are two products to
BUY! Plus you don't get to run it on a stick and so on. There is
just so much to recommend TW!
> > Where is "here"? I'm in Gaithersburg, Maryland, U.S.A. You must be
> > pretty far east of me.
> quite far... 10,000km or so, in Melbourne australia :-)
Kraikey mate! I almost moved to Sydney. I should be packing boxes
right about now and showing prospective buyers through the hose! My
wife is a band director teaching middle school and high school over in
Virginia. The ankle biters are driving her up a tree so she wants to
teach at the University level soon. She has a friend (her bassoon
teacher in her undergraduate program) who is dean of the Sydney
Conservatorium and so was negotiating a move to do a Doctorate in Wind
Conducting. It fell through for a number of reasons, but it is still
on the table for the future. We had already talked to our FIVE cats
and prepared them, psychologically, for the move. (And started the
vet work. What an expense!) I'm still monitoring the
AmericansinAustralia mail list to keep my head oriented to what it
would be like to do that move. (I've now learned to say "wall wart"
LOL ;-) We are trying to wrangle a trip there to scope it out. Maybe
this summer? Maybe next. But soon.
> > Yeah. I can see that. Right now I really want to see "tasks" listed
> > by context. As it stands, projects are listed by context and that is
> > not useful to me.
> I think it's becoming clear that TW is going to be most useful when you
> break work down almost to its most atomic units in single tiddlers,
> then let the Dashboard-type structure build it back up into a Plan.
> I think DA would approve of that.
I'm having a tough time getting my head around that. GTD has you put
all of your junk into Project "folders" then break out "actions" as
needed. DA is pretty much against doing more advanced planning than
necessary (not that we have to follow that advice).
What are you thinking? Break it down as far as possible and then call
every remaining project a "task" and let TW deal with it? Build up
"tasks" 'into "projects"? Or are you simply saying that when Simon
has a moment to catch his breath he will expand the feature set to the
point where it does such things as list task by context and perhaps
shows where the task fits into the hierarchy of containing projects
and subprojects?
--
Cheers,
Mike
walt
pointer); soon as i deleted from copy of code the calendar plugin (and
that was a *big* chunk of code there at line 4665!), the problem
disappeared.
Problem is: Calendar plugin is a *very* handy widget (albeit one with
an integration bug - but that's an issue i should raise in another
thread), so i'd prefer a differet solution than such act of butchery.
I guess i could up the threshold of script timeout (parameterized in
Mozilla), but that would not address the problem of latency itself
(except to eliminate that step of clicking "continue" button on the
timeout error msg).
If there are any other users running Moz (1.5.0.1) on Mac (10.4.5.1),
i'd love to hear if you get the error or not. |/|/
Ken Girard
A reason to not remove the 'New' buttons from the Dashboard is that
some task are single step things. There is no need to make a major
project out of "Buy beer on way home".
At the same time a 'New Project' button would just make this Monkey
even easier for a novice to use.
As to adding multiple project tags to a tiddler, it just doesn't work
that way. When you click 'Done', it adds the 'Done' tag. This will mark
that tiddler as done in every project and even non-projects (Such as
'Buy beer'). Once it sees that 'Done' tag it kicks it over to done with
out looking at anything else. You have to have different names for each
new task so that the computer understands that each task is a different
task.
(OK so I did come up with a situation where one might want to have a
task marked with multiple projects. If you need to do something like
'Get stuff from Auto Store', then it might be shared task between the
"Fix Engine" project and the "Change Oil" project. But even in this
case you have to watch what you do, as clicking 'Done' says that you
went to the Auto Store, but it doesn't mean that you remembered to buy
the oil. It seems to be more logical to make each task mean one thing
and one thing only.)
Hope that helps,
Ken Girard
walt
feature. Looking for it, i see an error message highlighted in red
near bottom of (default) GettingStarted tiddler, which says "Error in
macro <<importTiddlers>>" - so i'm not sure how to fix that or import
tiddlers otherwise.
As for using SVN: i've always thought of that as a programmers tool
for SCM (Sourcecode Management) in a shared (i.e. server-based,
multi-contributor) environment; if it's a good way for an individual
non-programmer like me to track different versions of the same file on
my own machine (is that correct?), then i should try it. It appears
(at VersionTracker.com) that SVN client options on Mac are much more
limited (don't see Tortoise listed there) - but this "SmartSVN" client
(shareware) comes pretty well recommended; guess i'll give that a try,
certainly if i start hacking on this code myself. I'd just as soon
limit myself to editing tiddlers ATM! |/|/
Morgan Wise
I agree that not every task is part of a project. Perhaps that is a
better statement of the issue. New Tasks from the Dashboard should not
be associated with a project. But right now they are, and the project
seems to be random.
Ken Girard
some of the task you create from the Dashboard getting assigned a
project tag that you are not selecting? If so something weird is going
on. They should pop up with nothing but Task and the priority you
selected tagged on them. The dashboard is intended for assigning
non-project related task (Get beer, pick up drycleaning) and giving you
an overview of what is going on in all your projects then it is for
assigning project related task.
It is much easier (in my opinion) to added task for a project while in
that project's tiddler (Meaning open the Project1 tiddler and assign
task from there). This way they are automatically tagged as being part
of that project. You still have to name each tiddler/task different
from each other, even if they are in different projects. "Send Report"
is not going to work if you have to send a report for 20 different
projects, but "Send Project1 Report", "Send Project2 Report", etc.
works and make sense when seen on the Dashboard.
Also as a quick fix, if you edit the Dashboard tiddler and add
<<newerTiddler button:"Add new project" name:"Project Name?"
tags:"Project">> to it you will get a new project button.
Ken Girard
Mike De Bruyn
--
Cheers,
Mike
Mike De Bruyn
> As for using SVN: i've always thought of that as a programmers tool
> for SCM (Sourcecode Management)
Actually, SCM = Software Configuration Management, which seems like
the same idea, but it pertains to managing not only the source code,
but requirements documentation, design documentation, test cases, link
modules, object modules and end product. The word "configuration" is
really key, because it is the configuration of the entire project that
you are managing. Just FWIW. ;-)
Cheers,
Mike
Morgan Wise
Something weird is going on. If I go to
http://simonbaird.com/monkeygtd/ and immediately click the new button
next to Urgent, I get a new tiddler tagged as "Task @Work [[TPS
Reports]]"
However, if I do the same thing on the file I downloaded yesterday, I
get the behavior you described, a new tiddler tagged as "Task 1-Urgent"
Also, thanks for the New Project button fix.
Thanks,
Morgan
Eric Shulman
> feature. Looking for it, i see an error message highlighted in red
> near bottom of (default) GettingStarted tiddler, which says "Error in
> macro <<importTiddlers>>" - so i'm not sure how to fix that or import
> tiddlers otherwise.
Go to http://www.TiddlyTools.com/
In the TiddlyStudios "starters" section, there is a link to an empty TW
with Import/Export plugins pre-installed.
http://www.tiddlytools.com/TW+ImportExport.html
Download this document and open it. Then just start importing your
tiddlers...
enjoy,
-e
Eric Shulman
TiddlyTools / ELS Design Studios
Ken Girard
On March 9 Simon saved a tiddler called New Task tagged with "Task
@Work [[TPS Reports]]". It keeps getting called up everytime you click
on any of the New task buttons. If it ever happens in your own TW just
delete the New Task tiddler and it will go back to acting correctly.
Same goes for New Tiddler as it can happen on that one as well (I used
to keep a generic reminder typed into New Tiddler in case I needed one
in what I was adding).
Oh, Simion! Morgan found something odd....
Ken Girard
Jacques Turbé
: you have a lot of good GTD practitionners there. If they answer, I'll
participate there.
As for your last question above, I put my answer here : my practice is
to breakdown as much as appropriate, that is not necessarily to tasks,
but to "unit of action" subprojects : a partial outcome, specified
deliverable to which I commit.
That is going down from the project level (usual sense, organisational,
several persons involved) to the GTD level (a single person, a single
desired outcome). My rule of thumb is to break down to the level where
my next outcome is within one or two weeks reach : so for a next
outcome tiddler, I often have one NA (task shown as a reminder in my
implementation of context lists and dashboards) and several other tasks
not to forget after. But when I interact with others (in meetings for
instance) I do not detail below the outcome level.
Thus your clean the Yard case of the other day becomes 5 tiddlers
( http://avm.free.fr/en_PimliPoche2.html ) :
* CleanTheYardCase
o Garden
o Lawn services
o Mow Lawn
o Repair Fen
CleanTheYardCase tiddler carries the need (usually some open loop
statement), the journal of thoughts and events for the project, and the
project dashboard : project map and next pending actions.
This project appears among "Family" tops projects in "Commit mainMenu,
its NAs are distributed between contexts in context mainMenu (or in
First Actions tabs). And its NAs and due dates are displayed in Date or
calendar popups (asaps, or ticklered tasks).
Then this project tiddler is tagging the four subprojects.
The beauty of "free form" databases - with tags but no "hard"
structure - like TiddlyWiki is that you do not have to spend efforts to
organize (beyond your words, ie your tags), and that you can grow your
system bottom up (if my initial tiddler was "Mow Lawn"), as well as
top-down (if it was CleanTheYard ). Almost no design/structure
maintenance overhead. You agregate your tiddlers as you breathe, or
events come.
And as we know, projects are often top down determenism, while GTD is
promoted as a bottom-up growth :)
Jacques
walt
something else i'm doing (managing, in that case).
I'm still wondering, tho, if SVN relevant to me as a mere user (not
developer; there's another google group for such people, right?) of
MonkeyGTD. Do i really want to have different versions of this one
file that is the hub of my trusted system (beyond a single backup,
which i do need for peace of mind) in play? Seems antithetical to some
fundamental premise of GTD (writing things in just one place, maybe),
though i find myself doing it already (e.g. versions with and without
calendar plugin)...
walt
|/|/
Mike De Bruyn
On 3/15/06, walt <wlud...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey, Mike: Thanks for the clarification about SCM; it's relevant to
> something else i'm doing (managing, in that case).
Glad I could help. SCM is something of a lost art in the fast pace
world of slinging code to meet deadlines regardless of any
consideration that it works ;-)
--
Cheers,
Mike
brent
file floating around... you have one single version that you trust: and
incidentally you have the added security of a log of every single
change you ever made to it.
I suppose it's little better than a funky backup program, with logs...
I do find it a hassle free way of trying out potentially fatal
TW-customisations... instead of the rigmarole of saving a renamed copy
then testing my changes then rerenaming everything... I can just
commit, make the changes then either recommit or revert.
But mostly because it's cool.
The 'beyond a single backup thing' can be answered: why just a single
backup? Why not periodically delete all your 'dead' or 'journal'
tiddlers... and log them in SVN? why not put your address book in SVN,
that way you can delete people and not lose them forever. Why not store
your emails in SVN, that way when you have your yearly purge you can
start with both a fresh slate and simple access to every file you ever
touched, ever.
----
oh wait. I'm typing too much.
brent
to save and refresh before it works.
thanks for the good work eric.
brent
oh, I see your problem, i think. you can't just have one single tiddler
with 87 tags for the different projects that task needs to be repeated
for... because then how do you mark it done?
Don't.
If you feel a need to record that sort of thing maybe record it
elsewhere, but just use the dashboard to record what's COMING.